.<►. 


^^^     ^"nO. 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


y 


A 


f// 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


"i^llllM    12.5 


!^   i^    III  2.0 


18 


il  III  1.6 


rnotograptiic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14580 

(716)  872-4503 


i/j 


CIHM/ICMH 
Microfiche 


CIHM/ICIVIH 
Collection  de 
microfiches. 


Canadian  Institute  for  Historical  Microreproductions  /  Institut  Canadian  de  microraproductions  historiques 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notes/Notes  techniques  et  bibliographiques 


The  Institute  has  attempted  to  obtain  the  beat 
original  copy  available  for  filming.  Features  of  this 
copy  which  may  be  bibliographically  unique, 
which  may  alter  any  of  the  images  in  the 
reproduction,  or  which  may  significantly  change 
the  usual  method  of  filming,  are  checked  buiow. 


D 


D 


D 


□ 


n 


n 


Coloured  covers/ 
Couverturtf  de  couleur 


r~~|    Covers  damaged/ 


Couverture  endommagie 


Cot/ers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  restaurie  et/ou  peiliculie 


□    Cover  title  missing/ 
Le  tit 


titre  de  couvt^'^ure  manque 


I      1    Coloured  maps/ 


Cartes  giographiques  an  couleur 


Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  da  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  bieue  ou  noire) 


I      I    Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations/ 


Planches  et/ou  illustrations  en  couleur 


Bound  with  other  material/ 
Reiiik  avec  d'autras  documents 


Tight  binding  may  cause  shadowii  or  dfstortion 
along  interior  margin/ 

Lareliure  serree  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
distorsion  le  long  da  la  marge  intdi'ieure 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restoration  may 
appear  within  the  text.  Whenever  possible,  these 
have  been  omitted  from  filming/ 
II  se  peut  que  certaines  pages  blanches  ajouties 
lors  d'une  restauration  apparaissent  dans  le  texte, 
mais,  lorsque  ceia  itait  possible,  ces  pages  n'ont 
pas  iti  filmies. 

Additional  comments:/ 
Commentaires  suppldmentaires: 


L'Institut  a  microfilm^  le  meilleur  exemplaire 
qu'il  lui  a  iti  possible  de  s«  procurer.  Las  details 
de  cet  exemplaire  qui  sont  peut-dtre  uniques  du 
point  de  vue  bibliographique,  qui  peuvent  modifier 
une  image  reproduite,  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une 
modification  dans  la  m^thode  normale  de  filmage 
sont  indiqu^s  ci-dessous. 


r~~|    Coloured  pages/ 


0 

D 


D 


Pages  de  couleur 

Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommag^es 

Pages  restored  and/oi 

Pages  restaurdes  et/ou  pellicul^es 


r~l    Pages  damaged/ 

p~l    Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 


Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 
Pages  d^rolordes,  tachet^es  ou  piquees 

Pages  detached/ 
Pages  ditachees 

Showthrough/ 
Transparence 

Quality  of  print  varies/ 
Quality  inigale  de  ('impression 


|~~|    Includes  supplementary  material/ 


Comprend  du  materiel  supplementaire 

Only  edition  available/ 
Seule  Edition  disponible 


Pages  wholly  or  partially  obscured  by  errata 
slips,  tissues,  etc.,  have  oeen  ref limed  to 
ensure  the  best  possible  image/ 
Les  pages  totalement  ou  partieltement 
obscurcies  par  un  feuillet  d'errata,  une  pelure, 
etc..  cnt  i^td  fiim^es  d  nouveau  de  facon  it 
obtenir  la  meilleure  image  possible. 


The 
tot 


The 
pes 
oft 
fiirr 


Ori( 
beg 
the 
sicr 
oth( 
first 
sior 
or  il 


The 
sha 
TIN 
whi 

Mai 
diff 
enti 
bag 
righ 
raqi 
mai 


This  itsm  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  est  film^  au  taux  de  reduction  indiqui  ci-dessous. 

10X  14X  18X  22A 


J 


12X 


16X 


20X 


26X 


30X 


24X 


28X 


] 


32X 


tails 

du 
odifier 

une 
mage 


The  copy  filmed  here  has  been  reproduced  thanks 
to  the  generosity  of: 

Douglas  Library 
Queen's  University 

The  images  appearing  here  are  the  best  quality 
possible  considering  the  condition  and  legibility 
of  the  original  copy  and  in  keeping  with  the 
filming  contract  specifications. 


L'exemplaire  fiimi  fut  reproduit  grAce  A  la 
gin^TonM  de: 

Douglas  Library 
Queen  s  University 

Les  images  suivantes  ont  6t6  reproduites  avec  le 
plus  grand  si  in,  compte  tenu  de  la  condition  et 
de  la  nettetA  de  i'exemplaire  filmi,  et  en 
conformity  avec  les  conditions  du  contrat  de 
filmage. 


Original  copies  in  printed  paper  covers  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  last  pag<9  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  impres- 
sicn,  or  thn  back  cover  when  appropriate.  Ail 
other  original  copies  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  page  with  a  printed  or  illustrated  impies- 
sion,  and  ending  on  the  last  page  with  a  printed 
or  illustrated  impression. 


Les  exemplaires  originaun  dont  la  couverture  en 
papier  est  ImprimAe  sont  fiimis  en  commengant 
par  le  premier  plat  et  en  terminant  soit  par  la 
derniire  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impresslon  ou  d'illustration.  soit  par  le  second 
pla;,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exemplaires 
originaux  sont  film^s  en  commengant  par  la 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impresslon  ou  d'illustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  dernidre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 


The  last  recorded  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  —»- (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 


Un  des  symboles  suivants  apparaTtra  sur  la 
dernidre  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbole  — »>  signifie  "A  SUIVRE",  le 
symb- le  V  signifie  "FIN". 


Maps,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratios.  Those  too  large  to  be 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  are  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  6tre 
film6s  d  des  taux  de  reduction  diffdrents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  dtre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  cliche,  il  est  fiimd  d  partir 
de  I'angle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  d  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prertant  le  nombre 
d'images  n6cessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  mithode. 


rrata 
o 


lelure, 
1  it 


J 


32X 


1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

1 

3 

4 

5 

6 

^ 


I 


^'•■^ 


A 


INEBRIETY 


ITS 


SOURCE,  PREVENTION,  AND  CURE 


BY 


CHARLES  FOLLEN    PALMER 


h 


New  York  Chicago  Tokonto 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

1898 


# 


/ 


Copyright,  1896,  by 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 


THE   NEW  YORK    TYl'E-SETTING   COMPANY 
THE   CAXTON    I'RESS 


CONTENTS 


The  Nervous-Mental  Organization 

rA(;K 

MoRiiin  Conditions  and  ri.RVKRTKD  Sknsations  ....  ii 

The  Characteristics  of  Nerve-'nfliience 12 

Natural  Inheritance   in  Connection  with  I'hysical  and 

Moral  Disease 16 

The  Nkuro-psychopathic  Constitution 17 

Mental  Disease 20 

The  Inebriate  Diathesis 21 

The  Relation  which  Disease  or  Injury  Holds  to  Alco- 
holic Inebriety 23 

The  Relation  which  Morality  l?ears  to  Inebriety 27 

The   Distinction    Made   liv  Medical   Scientists   be- 
tween Hereditary  and  Acquired  Inebriety    30 
The  Possibility  of  Altering  the  Constitutional  Tempera- 
ment by  Suitable  Education 31 

II 

The  Inebriate's  First  Step  toward  a  Cure 

The  Inebriate  in  His  Moral  Aspect 39 

Moral  Status  of  Inebriates 40 

Trained  Will  Power  an  Essential  to  Self-preser- 
vation   41 

5 


a 

^ 


'i> 


G 


CONTENTS 


I'AtiK 

An  Unselfish   Wife  not  Always  the  Best  for  a  Weak 

Husband 42 

The  First  Steps  to  be  Taken  for  the  Inebriate's  Resto- 
ration    44 

Sensitiveness  of  Some  Inebriates  to  Inebriate  Asylums  44 
Further  Steps  to  be  Taken  by  the  Inebriate  in  Building 

up  Moral  Manhood 45 

Purgation  of  Evil  Thoughts  of  Others  an  Essential ...  47 

The  Inebriate's    New  Life 48 

Nothing  More  Dangerous  than  a  Life  of  Ease,  Care- 
lessness, and  Levity 49 

The  Character  of  the  Temptations  that  will  Assail  11  im  50 

The  Valueof  Each  Day's  Self-denial  in  Petty  Indulgences  52 
No  Inebriate  Really  Cured  unless  He  has  Built  up  Self- 

control  on  the  Structure  of  Daily  Self-denial    53 

Ri;i'.\KATION    OK    TIIK    PllVSICAL    DaM.\U.:S    WROUGHT  BY 

Alcohol (.4 


III 


The    Rkmedying   of  the    Preinebriate    Morbid 

CONDITION.S    AND    THE    StRENCITHENING    OF 

THE  Bases  of  Seli<'-control 

Treatment  in  luuly  Youth   rq 

The  Masculine  Treatment  an  I'lssential  in  Early  Life  60 
The  Character  of  His  Occupations,  Amusements,  and 

Exercises , 52 

Sanitary  Regimen  in  Ventilation,  Cleanliness,  and  Diet  64 
Entire  Abstinence  from  all  Stimulants  and  Narcotics  an 

Essential  5^ 

To  Correct  the  Absence  of  Ambition  in  Moral-Material 

Directions _  _ ,  _  go 

The  Training  of  the  Executive  Force  or  Moral  Will 

Power ^^ 

Moral  Defection  in  Well-trained  Youths 76 


CONTENTS 


IV 


The  Inebriate's  Continued  Progress  in  Build- 
ing UP  Moral  Manhood 

i>A(;e 
The  Hypercritical  Condition  of  Mind  with  Regard  to 

Our  Fellow-men  very  Destructive  to  Mental  Health  8i 
The  Value  of  Being  Indulgent  to  the  Beliefs  and  Opin- 

ions  of  Others 85 

Manly  Indulgence  for  the  Weaknesses  and  Infirmities 

of  Others 86 

The  Value  of  Moral  Persistence 88 

Adherence  to  Virtues  in  Harmony  with  Our  Disposition 

and  Associations  not  Moral  Strength 90 

Encouragement  in  a  Life  of  Self-denial 92 


Moral  Characteristics  and   Various  Types  of 

THE   Inebriate 


The  Ineuriate  in  His  Moral  Characteristics 97 

The  Brutal  Criminal  Inebriate  of  Our  Cities ....  98 

The  Nervous  Animal  Type  of  Inebriate 98 

The  Intellectual  Type  of  Inebriate 99 

The  Domestic  and  Religious  Type  of  Inebriate 100 

The  Brutal  Criminal  Inebriate  in  His  Connection  with 

Jails  and  Penitentiaries loi 

The  Spiritual  Effects  of  Drunkenness 105 

Diagram To  follow  109 


THE  NERVOUS-MENTAL  ORGANIZATION 


The  Nervous-Mental  Organization 

Morhii)  Conditions  and  Pf.rvkrted  Sensations 
The  Cliarat'teristics  of  Ncrve-infli'ence 
Natural   InlicritaiicL'  in  Ccnincttion  with  Physical  and 
Moral  Disease 

TiiK  NKURo-i'svtiic   nine  CoNSTiTunoN 
Mental  Disease 

The  Ini.hkiaik  Dimiiesis 

The  Relation  which  Disease  or  Injury  flolus  to  Alco- 
holic Inebriety 
The  Relation  which  Morality  Bears  to  Inebriety 

The  Distinction   Made   hy  Medical  Scientists  be- 
tween Hereditary  and  Acquired  Inebriety 
The  Possibility  of  Altering  the  Constitutional  Tempera- 
ment by  Suitable  Education 


10 


THE  NERVOUS-MENTAL  ORGANIZA- 
TION 


Morbid  Conditions  and  Perverted  Sen- 
sations.—au  intelligent  persons  unite  in  believing 
that  the  entire  nervous  force  constituting  the  nervous 
organization  is  generated  within  the  ganglionic  centres 
of  the  brain,  and  that  the  brain  is  the  physical  organ 
of  the  mind.  Obedient  to  the  impulse  therein  given, 
this  im[)erial  and  multiform  system,  embracing  millions 
of  nerve-cells,  exercises  its  functions  in  the  production 
of  all  the  mental  phenomena. 

Under  the  varying  transformations  and  modifications 
of  the  nerve-sensations  are  evolved  our  ideas,  feelings, 
moral  perceptions  ;  through  these  we  acquire  the  facul- 
ties of  attention,  memory,  comparison,  judgment,,  and 
the  desires  and  volitions.  The  passions  —love,  hatred, 
fear — and  the  will  are  influenced  by  their  alternating 
activity.  With  every  movement  of  the  mental  processes 
there  is  a  change,  alteration,  or  loss  of  nerve-element, 
and  the  basis  upon  which  its  healthy  equilibrium  rests 
is  healthy  blood  and  pure  air. 

The  primal  force  which  produces  activity  in  this  sub- 
tle piece  of  mechanism  is  purely  spiritual,  and  is  de- 
rived from  the  first  great  Source  of  all  created  matter ; 

11 


12 


INEBRIETY 


but  the  exciting  causes  producing  its  manifold  phenom- 
ena are  spiritual,  psychical,  and  physical,  and  these  are 
constantly  arising  through  association  with  altering  con- 
ditions within  the  body,  with  external  objects,  and  with 
objects  that  are  neither  corporeal  nor  material. 

The  Qiaracteristics  of  Ncrvc-influcnce#— From 
the  lowly  forms  of  animal  life,  whose  nerves  pro- 
duce only  reflex  action  in  its  simplest  expression,  up- 
ward through  every  series  of  progressive  development, 
with  the  superaddition  of  nerve-centres,  wliich  add 
to  the  complexity  of  nerve-furrtion,  there  is  accu- 
mulated evidence  that  every  such  additional  centre 
furnishes  a  source  of  new  power,  potentially  capable, 
within  certain  limits,  of  modifying  the  action  of  the 
subordinate  centres,  yet  nevertheless  incapable  of  wholly 
negativing  their  specialized  functions.  Thus  the  organic 
nerve-cell  presides  over  nutrition,  and  so  far  as  the  sim- 
ple vegetative  growtli  of  the  animal  is  concerned,  its 
action  is  all-suiTicient ;  but  in  order  to  connect  simple 
and  organic  growth  with  the  plienomena  of  animal  life 
an  additional  centre  of  force  is  needed,  and  there  are 
evolved  the  reflex  centres  of  the  spinal  cord,  which 
unite  vegetative  growth  with  animal  action.  The 
sensory  centres  being  next  evoh  .d,  there  is  the  possi- 
b!h'ty  of  sensory  being  added  to  organic  and  reflex 
action.  There  is  no  consciousness  of  life,  of  motion, 
or  of  sensation  ;  but  evolution  goes  on,  and  the  brain 
becomes  the  centre  of  that  conscious  energy  which  pre- 
sides with  such  mysterious  power  over  the  thoughts 
and  actions  of  man. 

To  understand  fully  the  operations  of  the  brain  ne- 


TH^  NERVOUS-MEhlTAL   ORGANIZATION      13 


cessitates  a  knowledge  of  the  functions  of  the  spinal 
and  sensory  centres ;  for  there  are  many  acts  performed 
by  man  which  bear  the  semblance  of  conscious  volition, 
yet  when  correctly  interpreted  only  give  evidence  of 
automatic  action  of  the  reflex  centres  of  the  spinal  cord 
a!id  sensorium.  While  a  few  cases  have  been  reported 
in  which  apparendy  limited  nerve-action  resulted  with- 
out the  existence  of  the  proper  nerve-elements,  such  as 
fibres  and  cells  with  their  prolongations,  yet  it  is  an 
accepted  fact  that  nerve-force  exists  only  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  nervous  structure,  and  that  this 
nerve-force  is  generated  not  only  in  the  cells,  but  also 
in  the  fibres,  as  seen  when  they  are  at  rest.  For  ex- 
ample, in  a  Hmb  removed,  oxygen  or  strychnia  restores 
nervous  energy  after  its  complete  exhaustion. 

Nerve-force  is  not  generated  by  any  volitional  effort. 
As  magnetic,  frictional,  and  statical  electricity  are  only 
different  forms  of  expression  of  the  same  energy,  so 
simple  impression,  sensation,  ideation,  emotion,  and 
volition  are  but  different  forms  of  expression  of  the 
same  nerve  force  and  come  from  the  special  molecular 
structure  of  the  organ  through  which  they  iire  mani- 
fested. This  unity  of  nerve-force  precludes  its  intense 
expression  in  more  than  one  way  at  a  time,  so  that  if 
there  is  great  bodily  fatigue,  mental  work  is  impossible, 
and  vice  versa ;  neither  can  volition  hold  full  sway  in 
the  presence  of  deep  emotion. 

Nerve-energy  is  transformed  into  motion,  as  evi- 
denced in  muscular  action ;  it  is  also  transformed  into 
heat,  but  it  is  not  known  whether  this  is  an  immediate  or 
a  secondary  result.     There  arc  a  few  instances  recorded 


14 


INEBRIETY 


which  seem  to  show  its  transformation  into  h'ght,  and 
it  is  well  known  that  in  certain  animals  electricity  is 
the  direct  result  of  its  metamorphosis.  From  tliese 
data  the  conclusion  seems  authorized  that  at  least  a 
partial  correlation  exists  between  the  physical  forces 
and  the  energy  resulting  from  nerve-action.  It  is  im- 
portant to  remember  that  the  character  of  nervous  and 
mental  phenomena  is  determined  by  the  condition  of 
the  nerve-centres,  whether  the  condition  is  one  of  de- 
velopment of  the  centres  themselves  or  of  modification 
by  disease  or  by  foreign  substances.  The  existence  of 
the  spinal  cord  alone  predicates  the  possible  existence 
of  automatic  reflex  action,  which,  though  unconscious, 
gives  evidence  of  the  use  of  means  to  a  special  end. 
Add  to  the  spinal  centres  the  medulla  oblongata,  and 
there  result  the  involuntary  and  unconscious  coordi- 
nate muscular  movements  of  respiration,  swallowing, 
coughing,  and  simple  exclamation.  Unconscious  sen- 
sations of  pleasure  and  pain,  of  taste  and  hearing,  come 
by  the  addition  of  the  annular  protuberance,  while  the 
four  medullary  tubercles  at  the  posterior  surface  of  the 
annular  tuber  alone  give  visual  power.  The  cerebel- 
lum coordinates  the  muscular  movements  of  the  body, 
while  the  cerebrum  not  only  determines  the  nature  of 
the  mental  life,  but  it  alone  is  able  to  bring  the  varied 
sensations  of  nervous  action  Vvithin  the  domain  of  con- 
sciousness. The  existence  of  these  several  general 
centres  is  therefore  necessary  in  order  that  the  many 
acts  of  human  life  may  be  performed ;  and  as  a  neces- 
sary corollary  it  is  found  that  in  proportion  as  any 
centre  is  undeveloped,  diseased,  or  modified,  nervous 


THE   NERyOUS-MBNTAL   ORGANIZATION       15 


or  mental  action  will  be  changed,  limited,  or  arrested. 
That  mind  is  influenced  by  and  is  dependent  on  the 
physical  condition  of  the  brain  is  again  evident  when 
we  remember  the  effect  caused  by  poisoned  blood  on 
all  mental  expressions.  Hashish,  opium,  and  alcohol, 
for  example,  weaken  the  will,  exalt  the  automatic  ac- 
tion of  the  brain,  disturb  perception,  exaggerate  self- 
consciousness,  distort  the  emotions,  dethrone  reason, 
and  cause  moral  turpitude.  Diminish  the  normal  blood- 
supply  to  the  brain  and  the  mind  changes  its  charac- 
ter ;  restore  the  needed  amount  and  the  mind  promptly 
responds  to  the  altered  condition. 

Old  age,  injury,  fatigue,  anything  which  impairs  the 
normal  nutrient  action  of  the  nervous  centres  of 
thought,  directly  modify  intellectual  and  moral  mani- 
festations ;  and  the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  every 
psychical  manifestation  has  a  physical  antecedent,  and 
that  cause  and  effect  are  as  certainly  established  within 
the  realm  of  mind  as  of  matter.  To  explain  the  how 
and  the  why  of  mental  action  as  a  result  of  physical 
conditions  is  impossible.  It  is  an  ultimate  fact,  and  as 
such  is  beyond  explanation,  as  much  so  as  how  electri- 
city comes  from  the  union  of  metals  with  an  acid,  or 
how  life  springs  from  a  seed,  or  perfume  from  a  flower. 

The  effects  of  impure  air  on  the  nervous  system  are 
well  exemplified  in  the  case  of  young  resident  medical 
officers  in  hospitals,  one  and  all  of  whom,  more  espe- 
cially if  their  animal  vitality  is  still  further  lowered  by 
overstudy,  have  their  capacity  for  recuperation  some- 
times deteriorated  to  such  a  degree  that  if  they  get  a 
flesh-wound  it  is  almost  certain  to  become  a  suppurat- 


10 


INEBRIETY 


ing  sore,  and  so  bad  a  one  that,  notwithstanding  the 
application  of  the  most  powerful  therapeutic  agents  in 
the  pharmacopoeia,  it  will  sometimes  resist  healing  so 
long  as  they  live  under  the  hospital  roof;  whereas  it 
lieals  rapidly,  without  assistance  of  either  balm  or  lo- 
tion, so  soon  as  they  transport  themselves  into  the  pure, 
strong,  fresh  air  either  of  the  seaside  or  mountain-top.* 

Natural  Inheritance  in  G)nnection  with  Physi- 
cal and  Moral  Disease.— The  masterly  labors  of  Gal- 
ton  and  Ribot  have  established  the  fact  that  a  gen- 
eral law  of  heredity  obtains  in  the  mental  as  well  as 
in  perce'>tive  and  physical  life.  Its  influence  is  un- 
disputed by  all  intelligent  persons  in  forming  the 
character  of  instinct,  perception,  intellect,  will,  and 
control  over  the  appetites  and  passions,  including  all 
the  moral  impulses,  either  normal  or  abnormal,  and 
the  pathological  conditions  to  which  the  physical  and 
mental  life  are  subject.  This  law  invokes  an  analysis 
of  the  physical  and  mental  antecedents  which  give  the 
bias  to  the  criminal's  individual  character  and  which 
so  irresistibly  impel  him  to  crime. 

Testimony  is  conck.oive  in  establishing  the  heredity 
of  many  neurotic  diseases,  such  as  a  simple  nervous 
temperament,  neuralgia,  chorea,  hysteria,  hypochon- 
driasis, inebriety,  criminality,  and  insanity.  Assuredly 
it  is  a  fact  which  none  can  deny  that  the  offspring  of 
nervous,  insane,  epileptic,  inebriate,  consumptive,  scrof- 
ulous, or  criminal  parents  are  more  liable  to  develop 
some  special  form  of  disease  than  those  whose  parents 
are  free  from  any  vitiating  cause.     They  have  organi- 

*  William  G.  Stevenson,  M.D. ;  Dr.  George  liarley,  F.R.S. 


THE  NERVOUS-MENT/IL   ORGANIZATION       17 


zations  which  render  it  not  only  more  possible,  but 
more  probable,  for  ancestral  vice  to  appear,  although 
the  particular  form  which  this  vice  may  assume  is  not 
necessarily  determined  by  the  parent.     Many  neurotic 
diseases,  like  physical  forces,  are  correlati/es  of  one 
another.    They  are  metamorphosed  oftentimes  in  their 
transmission,  so  that  what  was  neuralgia  in  the  parent 
is  chorea  or  hysteria  in  the  offspring ;  or  chorea  or  hys- 
teria may  be  transformed  into  epilepsy,  and  this  into 
insanity,  and  in  a  third  generation  develop  phthisis, 
dipsomania,  or  criminality.     Conversely,  criminality  or 
drunkenness  may  engender  epilepsy  or  madness ;  and 
thus  throughout  the  entire  category  of  nervous  mani- 
festations testimony  is  adduced  to  sustain  the  fact  that 
cause  and  effect  are  as  invariable  in  the  intellectual 
and  moral  as  in  the  physical  world,  and  that  through 
heredity  the  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  forces  of 
the  ancestor  largely  determine  those  of  the  offspring. 

The  NEURapsYCHOPATHic  Constitution, 

—  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  treatise  to  enter  into  the 
comprehensive  subject  of  nervous  and  mental  diseases, 
but  only  to  inquire  into  that  one  department  of  die 
nervous  group  of  constitutional  temperaments  which  in 
France  is  known  as  the  neuro-psychopathic  constitu- 
tion, and  that  only  in  connection  with  one  of  its  exag- 
gerated forms,— inebriety,— involving  as  it  does  the 
happiness  and  success  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the 
human  family.  So  intimately  related  is  it  to  insanity 
and  the  neuroses  that  at  critical  per  ?^  as  of  life  it  i& 
very  apt  to  develop  into  one  of  them.    It  is  congenital, 


18 


INEBRIETY 


or  attributable  to  early  interference  with  the  normal 
(lex-elopment.  At  least  seventy-five  per  cent,  are  he- 
reditary. 

Included  within  its  subjects  are  to  be  found  the  most 
gifted,  the  most  vicious,  the  weakest,  and  ordinarily 
the  most  unhappy  of  mankind.  Chatterton,  Gold- 
smith, Burns,  Steele,  Coleridge,  Southey,  Charles 
Lamb,  and  Cowper  are  instances  of  this  perverted  or- 
ganic disposition.  Dr.  Folsom  doubts  if  the  compen- 
sation to  society  of  such  members  of  this  family  as 
IJyron,  Burns,  De  Quincey,  and  others  is  equal  to  the 
loss  and  injury  sustained  through  the  acquisition  of  the 
men  who  become  the  inmates  of  our  prisons  and  alms- 
houses and  destroyers  of  home  peace ;  and  he  quotes 
Clouston  as  saying  that  the  world  would  be  better  off 
to  lose  the  comparatively  few  ill-balanced  geniusc  s,  the 
hundreds  of  impracticable,  unwise,  talented  men  and 
women,  along  with  the  thousands  of  people  who  can- 
not get  on,  shiftless,  intemperate,  idle,  improvident, 
and  impracticable,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  diathesis. 

It  shows  itself  in  infancy  and  childhood  by  irregular 
and  disturbed  sleep,  irritability,  apprehension,  strange 
ideas,  great  sensitiveness  to  external  impressions,  high 
temperature,  delirium  or  convulsions  from  slight  causes, 
disagreeable  dreams  and  visions,  romancing,  intense 
feeling,  periodic  headaches,  muscular  twitchings,  ca- 
pricious appetites,  and  great  intolerance  of  stimulants 
and  narcotics.  At  pu])erty,  developmental  anomalies 
are  observed  in  girls,  and  not  seldom  perverted  sexual 
instincts  in  both  sexes.  During  adolescence  there  is 
often  excessive  shyness  or  bravado,  always  introspec- 


1 


THE   NliRyoUS-MENT.IL    ORGANIZATION       10 


tion  and  self-consciousness,  and  sometimes  abeyance 
or  absence  of  the  sexual  instinct,  which,  however,  is 
frequently  of  extraordinary  intensity.     The  imagina- 
tion and  imitative  faculticti  may  be  quick.     The  affec- 
tions and  emotions  are  strong.    Vehement  dislikes  are 
formed,  and    intense  personal   attachments  result   in 
extraordinary    friendships,^  which    not    seldom    swing 
around  to  bitter  enmity  or  indifference.     'J'he  natural 
home  associations  and  feelings  easily  become  disturbed 
or  perverted.     The  passions  are  unduly  a  force  in  the 
character  which  is  commonly  said  to  lack  will  power. 
The  individual's  higher  brain-centres  are  inhibited,  and 
he  dashes  about  like  a  ship  at  sea  without  a  rudder, 
fairly  well  if  the  winds  are  fair  and  the  sea  calm,  but 
dependent  upon  the  elements  for  the  character  and 
time  of  the  inevitable  final  wreck.     Invenlion,  poetry, 
music,  artistic  tastes,  philanthropy,  intensity,  and  ori- 
ginality are  sometimes  of  a  high  order  among  these 
persons,  but  desultory,  half-finished  work  and  shiftless- 
ness  are  much  more  common.     W'wh  many  of  them 
concentrated,  sustained  effort   is   impossible,  and   at- 
temi)ts  to  keep  them  to  it  result  disastrously.     Their 
common  sense,  perception  of  the  relations  of  life,  ex- 
ecutive or  business  faculty,  and  judgment  are  seldom 
well  developed.     The  memory  is  now  and  then  phe- 
nomenal.    In  later  life  there  is  a  ready  reaction  to  ex- 
ternal circumstances,  even  to  the  weather,  by  which 
they  are  usually  a  little  exhilarated  or  somewhat  de- 
pressed.    They  are  apt  to  be  self-conscious,  egoistic, 
suspicious,  and   morbidly   conscientious;    they   easily 
become  hypochondriacal,  victims   of  insomnia,  neu- 


rit 


m\ 


7' 


20 


INFRRIBTY 


roue,  hysterical,  intemperate,  or  insane;  and  they  c,f- 
fcncl  against  the  proprieties  of  Hfe  or  commit  crnnes 
^vith  Ic^s   cause  or  provocation  than  other   persons. 
Many  of  them  are  among  the  most  gifted  and  attrac- 
tive  people  in  their  community,  but  the  majority  are 
otherwise   and    possess    an    uncommon^  '''^^''''\^Z 
nuiking  fools  of  themselves,  being  a  nuisance  to  their 
friends  and  of  little  use  to  the  world.    Some  exceptions 
get  on  fairly  well  if  their  lives  are  tolerably  easy  or 
especially  well  regulated.     Their  mortality  rate  espe- 
cially  from  pulmonary  consumption,  is  high.     In  tne 
critical  physiological  periods  of  life  there  is  danger  of 

breaking  down. 

Mental  Disease,-Tliere  is  a  further  developmen 
of  the  hereditary  predisposition  to  nervous  or  mental 
perversion,  with  more  or  less  evidence  of  the  neuro- 
psychopathic constitution.     It  is  of  two  forms,   the 
depressed  and  the  mildly  exhilarated,  in  either  case 
amounting  to  simple  melancholia  or  mild  mama     Some- 
times the  two  forms  are  seen  in  a  sin-le  member  or  in 
different  members  of  one  family  where  mental  degenera- 
tion has  begun.    The  frequent  association  of  pulmonary 
disease  with  these  cases  is  possibly  due  to  malnutrition 
in  those  persons  living  under  the  influence  of  more  or 
less  perpetual  gloom,  and  to  exposure  and  overexertion 
in  those  who  are  constantly  and  unnaturally  excited, 
sleeping  too  little,  and  drawing  upon  their  alert  brains 
to  the  extent  of  exhaustion. 

Misanthropists,  communists,  enthusiasts,  reformers, 
useless  people  and  worse  than  useless,  common  nui- 
sances, criminals,  saints,  and  heroes  are  found  among 


77//:    Nl-.Rl'OUS-MENTAI.   ORGANIZ/ITION       21 


them.  Undoubtedly  in  the  case  of  criminals  the  tyr- 
anny  of  their  organization  deprives  the  intellect  of  the 
proper  inhibitory  power  over  the  passions  and  evil  ten- 
dencies, and  yet  with  sufficient  motive  they  can  hold 
themselves  considerably  in  check.  It  is  only  when 
the  disease  progresses  into  active  insanity  that  the 
world  is  convinced  that  what  it  looked  upon  as 
meanness  and  wickedness  was  only  disease.  It  seems 
like  progressive  development  of  character,  except  for 
the  fact,  generally  overlooked,  that  it  advances  in  a 
contrary  direction  to  what  would  be  natural,  and  is  in- 
dependent of  normal  development.* 

The  Inebriate  Diathesis.— The  earliest  teach- 
ing of  the  temperance  reformer  was  that  intoxicating 
liquors  are  dangerous  articles;  that  multitudes  of 
persons  are  so  susceptible  to  tlie  narcotic  influence  of 
alcohol  that,  whatever  their  accomplishments  or  station, 
if  they  drink  at  all  they  drink  to  drunkenness ;  and  that 
the  confirmed  inebriate  is  a  diseased  indivitlual  under- 
going the  tortures  of  a  living  death,  manifesting  symp- 
toms characteristic  of  the  operation  of  an  irritant  nar- 
cotic poison. 

The  temperance  enthusiast .  f  latter  days  denies  that 
inebriety  is  ever  a  disease,  insists  that  the  fault  always 
lies  with  the  drunkard,  never  in  the  drink,  and  that  only 
evibdisposed  persons  and  fools  fall  victims  to  the  al- 
coholic excess. 

With  the  former  7vcll-itifonncd  friend  of  the  inebriate 
the  physical  phase  of  narcotic  indulgence,  the  arduous 

*  Dr.  Folsom. 


IhlliMIHTY 


and  protrcactcd  (haractcr  of  the  struggle  of  the  drunk- 
ard  for  emancipation  from  his  t;rannous  taskmaster, 

is  recognized. 

With  tlie  latter  ill-informed  visionary  there  is  no 
physical  element  in  Uie  matter,-nothing  but  wanton 
immorality,  a  wiuul  sin,  or  at  the  best  degrading 
weakness,  in  taking  the  first  drink  after  the  evil  is 
once  recognized  by  the  moral  perceptions,— and  he 
complacently  declares  that  religious  and  moral  deter- 
mination and  influences  are  alone  of  service  in  the 
reformation  and  cure  of  the  inebriate. 

The  illustrious  foreruimer  of  temperance,  Erasmus 
Darwin,  two  centuries  ago,  and  Benjamin  Rush,  a 
century  ago,  besides  other  far-seeing  and  profound 
thinkers  long  before,  knew  and  taught  the  truth.  It 
is  not  the  vicious,  the  ill  disposed,  or  the  poor  who 
alone  swell  the  great  army  of  Uie  intemperate  ;  the  most 
guileless  spirits,  the  purest  minds,  die  most  unselfish 
souls,  the  loftiest  understandings,  and  the  clearest  heads 
have  gone  down  before  the  irresistil)le  power  of  drink. 

The  refrain  swells  from  ten  thousand  voices,  "  Men 
become  drunkards  because  they  drink."  If  ever  this 
were  true  it  is  here  ;  but  in  the  language  of  Tennyson  : 

"  'I'luit  a  lie  which  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest  of  lies ; 
That  a  lie  which  is  ail  a  lie  can  be  met  and  fought  with  t)Utright, 
But  a  lie  which  is  part  a  truth  is  a  harder  matter  to  fight." 

Men  become  drunkards  through  drinking,  it  is  true; 
that  is,  drinking  is  the  means  by  which  they  attain  to 
a  state  of  int')xication.     Though  a  cause,  drinking  is 


THI:    Nl^RrOUS-Mf-NT/IL   ORGANIZATION       23 


not  the  sole  cause  of  drunkenness.  It  is  in  our  coun- 
try  and  in  some  otlier  countries  the  i)rincii)al  means  of 
intoxication.  In  other  lands,  and  to  a  great  extent 
among  ourselves,  opium  and  other  narcotics  are  the  in- 
toxicating agents.  There  are  many  means  used,  by 
men  and  women  who  never  drank  and  cannot  drink 
alcohol  in  any  form,  to  produce  the  toxic  condition 
and  give  rise  to  the  inebriate  diathesis. 

A  case  has  recently  come  to  light,  die  first  instance 
known  to  medical  science,  of  a  phosphorus  liab.' 
used  first  as  a  nerve-stimulant.  The  patient,  while  in 
the  army,  felt  some  symptoms  of  nervous  debility,  and 
seeing  the  hospital  steward  give  phosi)h()rus  to  sick 
soldiers,  he  began  taking  it  himself  in  the  shape  of 
pills.  It  seemed  to  put  new  strength  and  energy  into 
his  nervous  system.  He  subsequently  became  a  con- 
firmed habitue  to  its  use,  and  now  he  cannot  give  it  up 
without  his  nerves  suffering  ;  he  craves  it  as  the  drinker 
craves  his  dram,  and  is  a  complete  wreck.* 

The  Relation  which  Disease  or  Injury  Holds  to 
Alcoholic  Inebriety.— Disease  may  act  as  the  precMs- 
posing,  exciting,  complicating,  and  protracting  cause 
of  alcoholic  inebriety.  The  disease  may  be  inherited 
or  acquired.  It  is  proverbial  that  the  progeny  of  in- 
sane or  inebriate  parents  frequently  become  insane  or 
inebriate  either  at  or  near  puberty  or  middle  life,  when 
the  exciting  causes  are  presented  that  develop  the  latent 
tendency.  As  many  are  born  imbecile,  epileptic,  or 
idiotic  because  of  some  defect  in  the  procreating  power, 
*  Dr.  Norman  Kerr,  F.  R.  S. 


'i-m 


24 


INFRRIETY 


so  many  are  born  who  inherit  an  inebriate  diathesis; 
it  is  tlieir  sad  birtiiright.  They  are  the  product  of  a 
defective  and  degenerate  parentage.  Cf  several  hun- 
dred cases  of  inebriates  whose  ancestral  records  were 
noted  at  the  Fort  Hamilton  Inebriate  Asylum,  over  one 
third  had  cither  insane  or  inebriate  parents,  the  latter 
being  in  excess. 

While  we  may  regard  inebriety  and  insanity  in  pa- 
rents as  the  principal  predisposing  causes  of  alcoholic 
inebriety  in  their  offspring,  we  should  also  include 
among  the  predisposing  causes  of  an  hereditary  char- 
acter,  only  secondary  in  importance  to  those  mentioned, 
(7//  nniroHc  icndi'uch's,  all  hereditary  diseases  accompanied 
by  dei^enerafive  r//<?//C''J— congenital  syphilis,  tubercu- 
losis, epilepsy,  or  other  neuroses.  The  sul)jects  influ- 
enced by  such  diatheses  are  born  with  a  defective 
nervous  system,  and  have  a  low  resisting  power  to  the 
degenerating  inroads  of  ;lisease.  They  are  congenital 
neurotics ;  they  have  a  natural  tendency  toward  drugs, 
either  stimulating  or  narcotic,  and  readily  become  in- 
sane or  inebriates  or  oj)ium  habitues  whenever  a  suffi- 
ciently exciting  cause  is  presented. 

In  brief,  then,  any  disease  of  an  hereditary  charac- 
ter acting  either  directly  or  indirectly  upon  the  nervous 
system,  while  it  may  not  be  as  important  as  hereditary 
iiisanity  or  inebriety  in  determining  the  channels  into 
which  the  future  life  shall  drift,  nevertheless  imposes 
upon  that  life  a  diminished  resisting  power  to  the  use 
of  alcoholic  stimulants  or  narcotics,  and  so  predisposes 
the  individual  to  inebriety 

Let  us  now  consider  -r    "i  couditions  which  may  be 


THE  hIERyOUS'MENT/il.   ORGAN IZ/tTION 


2r» 


cleiioininated  the  rxriting  causes  of  alcoholic  inebriety, 
ami  we  shall  fmd  they  were  acqnin'd  in  the  form  of 
disease  or  injury  by  the  person  at  some  period  of  his 
life  anici/iiting  /lis  inebriety. 

These  exciting  causes  may  operate  U[)on  a  person 
predisposed  by  heredity  to  inebriety,  and  so  [)re<ipitate 
or  hasten  a  tendency  that  might  have  manifested  ilscli 
later,  or  tliey  may  act  upon  one  who  has  not  any  he- 
reditary  fcndency  to  inebriety,  but  who  becomes  an 
inebriate  from  disease  or  injury. 

These  exciting  causes  may  be  divided  into : 
Z^/;vr/,  those  that  operate  immediately  upon  the  cere- 
brospinal axis,  as  cerebral  concussion,  frac'ure  of 
skull  with  or  without  depression,  sunstroke,  cerebral 
syphilis,  or  other  disturbance  of  the  encephalon  more 
or  less  profound  ;  and 

Indirect^  any  disease  or  injury  not  producing  direct 
changes  on  the  cerebrospinal  axis,  but  localized  out- 
side of  it,  and  operating  upon  it  by  reflex  influence, 
viz.,  painful  ulcers,  neuritis,  neuromata,  urethral  stric- 
ture, and  dysmenorrhea ;  in  brief,  any  distressing  or 
painful  condition,  thus  indirectly  acting  upon  the  ner- 
vous system. 

In  the  experience  of  many,  "head  injuries"  hold  an 
important  place  among  the  direct  exciting  causes.  At 
least  one  in  six  h-td  received  blows  on  the  head,  and 
forty-one  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  cases  of 
head  injuries  recorded  at  Fort  Hamilton  were  fractures 
of  the  skull ;  in  fcuu-  of  these  cases  there  was  loss  of  bone. 
Twenty-one  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  be- 
came habitual  inebriates,  the  others  periodical  inebriates. 


•JG 


INEBRIETY 


Svp/iiHs.  -About  one  in  four  of  the  cases  entering 
the  b'ort  Hamilton  Inebriate  Asylum  are  syphilitic. 
Syphilis  is  not  infrequently  the  exciting  cause  of  ine- 
briety,  more  especially  in  the  later  stages,  when  the 
nervous  system  becomes  involved. 

Mental  shock,  resulting  fronx  sudden  or  excessive 
grief  or  joy,  may  be  an  exciting  cause  of  inebriety,  act- 
ing as  it  does  directly  upon  the  nervous  centres  by 
vasomotor  disturbances.  But  while  mental  shocks,  if 
they  do  not  kill  outright,  may  precipitate  the  subject  of 
them  into  insanity  or  inebriety,  and  the  first  act  of  the 
insane  may  be  an  outbreak  of  intemperance  or  licen- 
tiousness  in  a  person  heretofore  temperate  and  moral, 
these  exciting  causes  of  inebriety  are  insignificant  when 
compared  with 

Neurasthenia,  or  nerve-exhaustion,  a  prolonged  vaso- 
motor  disturbance  of  the  cerebral  circulation,  resulting 
from  underfeeding  and  overworking  and  worry,  or  other 
depressing  causes  producing  physical  weakness,  want 
of  mental  energy,  and  almost  total  inability  to  perform 
the  ordinary  duties  of  life.  Under  these  conditions 
alcohol  is  sought  for  its  stimulating  effect.  It  is  the 
spur  by  which  the  tired  heart  and  wearied  brain  are 
goaded  on  in  the  treadmill  of  routine  and  daily  toil. 
It  is  for  the  neurasthenic  we  invent  the  "  rest-cure," 
"massage,"  "systematic  feeding;"  and  happy  is  he 
who  seeks  them  early  before  the  chains  of  habit  and 
disease  have  made  him  a  prisoner. 

The  social  customs  and  tendencies  of  the  age  in 
which  we  live  are  oftentimes  the  foundation  causes  of 
neurasthenia,  the  fierce  rush   in  the  race  of  Hfe  for 


THE  NERl/OUS-MENTAL   ORGAhllZATlON       27 


wealth,  position,  and  "  that  honor  which  comes  from 
men  "  being  so  great  that  to  outstrip  our  fellows  the 
words  "rest."  "diet,"  "recreation"  must  be  erased  from 
our  vocabulary. 

If  these  premises  which  we  have  presented  and  en- 
deavored to  prove  as  to  the  relation  which  disease 
holds  to  alcoholic  excess  are  correct,  then  we  are  war- 
ranted in  drawing  the  following  conclusion :  AlcohoUt 
inebridy  is  often  based  upon  and  dependent  on  diseased 
conditions^  which  demand  proper  medical  or  hygienic 
treatment  for  their  removal.  The  inebriate  is  a  diseased 
person^  and  the  disease  has  either  preceded  the  inebriety  or 
is  dependent  upon  it. 

The  Relation  which  Morality  Bears  to  Inebriety. 
—The  moral  view  has  had  full  sway;  the  moral  re- 
sponsibility of  the  drunkard  has  been  the  topic  of  a 
century;  institutions  have  been  founded  on  the  "moral 
l)asis,"  and  society  and  law  and,  worse  than  all,  the 
family  of  the  inebriate  have  treated  him  not  as  a  sick 
man,  but  as  a  moral  delinquent. 

The  relation  which  morality  bears  to  inebriety  ceases 
or  assumes  a  secondary  position  when  inebriety  is  de- 
pendent upon  diseased  conditions.  We  do  not  by  any 
means  exclude  those  moral  influences  which  operate 
on  the  higher  and  better  nature  of  man.  These  re- 
strain  the  inel)riate  from  the  worst  features  of  his  in- 
temperate career,  and  are  a  very  important  element 
in  the  treatment,  but  they  must  be  assigned  to  their 
l)roper  place  as  only  a  factor  in  the  measures  of  cure. 
The  authorities  of  the  church  and  all  philanthropic 
bodies  and  individuals  are  co-workers  in  returning  die 


28 


INEBRIETY 


inebriate  to  his  healthy  condition,  but  these  must  ac 
company,  not  supplant,  the  hospital,  the  health  insti- 
tute, the  i)hysician,  and  the  hygienic  means  used  for 

his  cure. 

It  is  not  extravagant  to  assert  that  the  so-called 
moral  treatment  of  the  inebriate  has  been  the  great 
obstacle  in  the  proper  treatment  of  his  case.  'I'lie  in- 
stances in  which  reproaches,  imposed  mortifications, 
insults,  scoldings,  contempt,  criminations  and  recrim- 
inations, imprisonments,  and  other  punishments  ha\'e 
done  other  than  to  aggravate  all  the  morbid  manifes- 
tations, and  to  reflect  back  serious  morbid  consequences 
on  the  agents  of  such  treatment,  are  so  exceptional  as 
to  make  them  unworthy  of  consideration. 

This  injudicious  conduct  is  the  result  of  regarding 
the  victim  of  a  neurosis,  of  a  defective  inhil)itory  power 
of  the  brain-centres,  of  vitiated  sensations,  as  having 
<rone  deliberatelv  to  work,  through  criminal  self-indul- 
gence  and  love  of  a  degrading  vice,  through  a  wicked 
jierversity  against  walking  in  the  "strait  and  narrow 
I)aih,"  through  pure  wilfulness,  and  all  the  other  beliefs 
incident  to  minds  trained  in  one  direction,  to  make 
himself  a  drunkard,  to  continue  a  drunkard  for  the 
very  love  of  it,  and  to  refuse  to  be  other  than  a  drunk- 
ard, radier  than  exercise  the  self-control  necessary  to 
become  a  temperate  man. 

A  recent  medical  scientist  mentions  the  case  of  a 
sf)ldier  in  the  War  of  Uie  Rebellion,  who  from  being  an 
amiable  and  good  man,  the  pride  of  his  home  and 
family,  anterior  to  his  enlistment  as  a  soldier,  returned 
from  the  batUe-field  so  altered  in  his  moral  conduct 


THE  NERVOUS-MENTAL   ORGANIZATION       29 


that  his  relatives  were  disgusted  and  finally  renounced 
him.     He  wandered  from  one  soldiers'  home  to  an- 
other all  through  the  country,  not  being  permitted  to 
remain  long  in  any  on  account  of  his  conduct.     He 
lied,  stole,  drank,  told  marvelous  tales  of  his  exploits, 
and  among  other  things  declared  that  he  had  a  ball  in 
his  head,  which,  of  course,  was  not  believed.     At  his 
death  on  autopsy  was  made  which  proved  the  truth 
of  his  assertion.     The  poor  man  had  been  wandering 
around  with  a  bullet  in  his  head,  suffering  all  kinds 
of  moral  degradation,  the  uiunerited  reproaches,  con- 
tempt, and  abandonment  of  wife,  family,  and  friends, 
all  because  he  had  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  shot 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  interrupt  the  healthy  working 
of  his  brain,  causing  the  morbid  manifestations  attrib- 
uted to  his  wickedness. 

To  prevent  misapprehension,  let  it  be  known  that 
we  do  not  regard  all  drunkards  as  subjects  of  the  dis- 
ease inebriety.     There  are  those  who  indulge  intem- 
perately  who  drink  as  they  gamble -for  mere  ideasure, 
even  though  in  their  case  the  intemperate  habit  is  apt 
in  the   long   run  to   establish  a  permanent  departure 
from  health.     The  majority  of  drinkers  are  not  dis- 
eased ;  there  is  no  inherited  diathesis  or  cachexia  re- 
sponsive to  narcotic  excitement.     Exciting  causes  play 
as  thickly  around  them,  provocative  temptations  besel 
them  as  persistently,  pain,  grief,  joy,  and  excitement 
try  their  nerves  as  severely  as  all  these  excitants  har- 
ass the  possessors  of  the  narcotic  proclivity;  but  the 
inebriate   excitation    expends  itself   in   vain,   and   the 
inebriate  storm  passes  over  a  constitution  which  is 


30 


INEBRIETY 


unafTected  because  it  owns  no  corresponding  predis- 
position. 


The  Distinction  Made  by  Medical  Scien- 
tists BETWEEN  Hereditary  and  Acquired 

Inebriety. —  There  are  writers  who  make  a  strong 
distinction  between  hereditary  (h'seased  conditions  in- 
volving inebriety,  and  that  state  brought  about  through 
self-indulgence  and  association.  They  name  the  first 
dipsomania,  and  the  other  habitual  drunkenness  pure 
and  simple. 

Quain  defines  dipsomania  as  an  irritability  of  the 
nervous  system  characterized  by  a  craving,  generally 
periodic,  for  alcoholic  and  other  stimulants,  and  says 
that  the  occurrence  of  this  form,  as  of  other  nervous 
diseases,  may  be  traced  in  the  family  history  of  the 
patient,  and  that  it  may  easily  be  and  often  is  con- 
founded with  mere  habitual  drunkenness ;  that,  while 
in  dipsomania  there  is  a  fundamental  condition  which 
manifests  itself  irrespective  of  external  circumstances 
of  temptation,  in  h.'bitual  drunkenness  the  craving 
consists  mainlv  in  a  desire  to  keep  up  a  condition  of 
stimulation  to  which  the  brain  has  become  accustomed. 
The  habit  is  the  result  merely  of  compliance  with  a 
vicious  custom ;  there  is  no  such  periodicity  or  inde- 
pendence of  external  influences  as  is  found  in  the  true 
disease. 

The  symptoms  of  the  latter,  or  true  dipsomania,  are 
described  as  an  instability  of  character,  indications  of 
peculiar  nervous  irritability, — generally  recognized  as 
having  preceded  the  distinct  development  of  the  crav- 


THE   NERVOUS-MENTAL   ORGANIZATION       31 


ing,— an  abnormal  sensitiveness  to  the  influence  of 
stimulants  through  which  at  times  very  small  quantities 
of  alcohol  produce  appreciable  intoxication.  During 
the  periods  of  craving  the  whole  being  is  enthralled 
with  this  morbid  desire. 

The  duration  of  the  periods  of  craving  is  variable, 
l)ut  most  commonly  they  last  one  or  two  weeks,  while 
the  remissions  may  continue  from  two  to  twelve  months. 
Members  of  the  household  in  which  a  patient  lives 
can,  indeed,  often  recognize  the  indications  of  a  com- 
ing attack  of  the  mania  by  a  restlessness  and  depres- 
sion which  precedes  any  such  indulgence.  Moderate 
indulgence  in  a  stimulant  may  l)ring  on  the  morbid 
craving,  but  the  desire  is  frequently  developed  without 
any  such  introduction.  During  the  intervals  the  pa- 
tient seems  (except  when  the  brain  is  weakened)  to 
recover  completely,  and  he  generally  displays  great 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  resist  the  tendency  in  the 
future.  But  even  though  compulsory  restraint  has  been 
successfully  enforced  for  a  considerable  period,  the  mor- 
bid tendency  is  seldom  eradicated. 

The  Possibility  of  Altering:  the  Constitutional 
Temperament  by  Suitable  Education.— It  will  have 
to  be  admitted,  therefore,  that  there  is  in  the  nervous- 
mental  organization  of  the  inebriate  an  inherent  weak- 
ness, a  diseased  condition,  which  makes  him  more  the 
creature  of  circumstances  and  susceptible  to  the  influ- 
ences which  result  in  drink  than  would  be  the  case 
in  normally  healthy  nervous  organizations. 

In  the  case  of  numbers  of  individuals  born  into  the 
world  it  would  seem  as  if  by  the  order  of  their  being 


32 


INRBRIETY 


they  were  exempt  from  all  ordinary  possibilities  of  be- 
coming intemperate  or  insane,  be  the  environment  of 
life  what  it  may.  'J'iiis  phenomenon  is  frequently  wit- 
nessed even  in  the  offspring  of  the  same  parents,  who 
differ  widely  as  to  their  after  destinies  in  life,  some 
becoming  inebriates  or  insane,  and  others  healthfully 
growing  into  temperate,  mentally  capable,  and  success- 
ful men  and  women. 

It  would  be  gready  opposed  to  my  purpose  to  sug- 
gest a  plausible  pretext  by  which  one  generation  of  a 
fann'ly  can  throw  the  odium  of  its  moral  and  physical 
defection  and  failure  in  life  upon  the  generations  pre- 
ceding it.     Heredity  has  been  defined  as  the  sum  of 
all  the  ancestral  forces  culminating  in  the  individual 
at  birth,  at  which  time  begins  the  hygiene  or  environ- 
ment of  life ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  believe  that  in 
every  individual  birth  there  is  a  compensatory  adjust- 
ment of  forces  in  different  directions,  which  practically 
amounts  to  an  equality  so  far  as  individual  happiness 
is  concerned,  and  that  education  docs  the  rest.     The 
constitution  that,  under  injudicious  training  anil  envi- 
ronment, tends  in  the  direction  of  inebriety  or  insanity 
may  be  extraordinarily  capable,  under  the  rightful  as- 
sociations, of  making  a  John    Howard   or  a   Martin 
Luther.     'J1ie  inheritor  of  the  inebriate  predisposition 
may  by  eschewing  intoxicants,  by  simple  and  healthful 
diet,  by  the  observance  of  hygienic  laws,  by  the  culti- 
vation of  the  mental  and  moral  faculties,  and  by  the 
hallowed  power  of  religious  conviction,  not  only  pre- 
serve a  life  unsullied  by  a  single  drunken  blot,  but  rise 
to  a  height  of  usefulness  and  honor  exceptional  in  its 


THE  NERVOUS-MENTAL   ORGANIZATION       83 


character.  It  b  only  the  accurate  knowledge  of  his 
real  tendencies  and  susceptibilities  at  the  earliest  pos- 
sible period  of  his  history  that  is  requisite.  Possessed 
of  these,  he  can  set  about  to  devise  an  impregnable  line 
of  defense  against  revolt  from  within  and  assault  from 
without ;  knowing  these,  he  can  fortify  the  weak  places, 
he  can  make  good  his  defects,  he  can  keep  in  check 
the  impetuosity  of  his  passions,  he  can  strengthen  his 
self-control,  he  can  seek  support  from  the  Source  most 
powerful  to  succor  him,  he  can  employ  with  effect  arms 
of  power  and  precision. 

The  futility  of  censures  or  palliations  is  too  apparent 
to  need  any  apology  in  dwelling  upon  the  transmitted 
basis  of  character.     With  these  the  inebriate  has  noth- 
ing to  do,  but  simply  with  the  knowledge  of  the  phys- 
iological and  moral  pedigrees  of  at  least  two  or  three 
generations  of  the  family  directly  preceding  his  own, 
so    that  he   may  be    cognizant   at   the   beginning   of 
his  liic  of  his  latent  organic  physical  and  intellectual 
disposition,  and  be  enabled  to  make  suitable  selection 
of  association  and  mental  and  physical  discipline  the 
best  adapted  to  subvert  and  correct  unwholesome  and 
pernicious  tendencies,  and   to  encourage  the  growth 
and  development  of  healthy  latent  intellectual  organs 
and  capabilities  of  the  mind.     If  it  were  the  uniform 
custom  for  each  intelligent  family  to  place  on  family 
record  a  chart  of  the  approximate  traits,  characteristics, 
sicknesses,  and  general  history  of  its  living  members, 
and  of  those  of  their  progenitors  into  whose  lives  they 
have  had  some   insight,  their  descendants  would  be 
informed  of  the  influences  at  work  within  themselves 


HilMHittar 


ESS 


34 


INEBRIETY 


to  mold  tlicir  rliaractcrs  for  better  or  worse,  and  could 
not  plead  ignorance  when  malevolent  conditions  con- 
si»ired  to  foster  and  encourage  natural  dispositions  in 
false  directions. 

In  this  knowledge  and  the  subsequent  conduct  of 
the  youth  in  the  different  phases  of  mental,  moral,  and 
I)hysical  activities  up  to  the  time  of  marriage  is  largely 
involved  the  earthly  happiness  or  misery  of  unborn 
generations  of  humanity.  If  by  wilful  non-compliance 
with  moral  and  physiological  laws  which  influence 
the  successful  development  of  the  individual  he  remits 
to  these  any  portion  of  his  own  acquired  moral,  mental, 
and  physical  debts,  for  them  either  to  discharge  by 
j)ainful  exertion  of  right-doing,  perhaps  under  unfavor- 
able and  depressing  conditions  of  living,  or  to  relieve 
themselves  altogether  by  moral  defection  and  subse- 
quent remorse  and  misery,  he  most  assuredly  assumes 
a  large  responsibility  in  the  character  of  their  after  Hves. 
In  the  case  of  a  goodly  number  of  individuals  who 
seem  to  pass  happily  through  life  without  any  appa- 
rent attrition  of  evil,  how  much  may  they  thus  uncon- 
sciously owe  to  the  moral  integrity  of  preceding  gen- 
erations who  left  the  inestimable  lieritage  of  a  healthy 
organization  to  their  descendants! 

We  cannot  doubt  for  one  moment  that  many  indi- 
viduals born  with  defective  nervous  organizations, 
and  corresponding  mental-moral  idiosyncrasies  and 
morbid  susceptibilities,  have  through  favorable  training 
in  early  life  (perhaps  in  the  greater  number  of  cases 
more  the  result  of  fortuitous  circumstances  than  of 
actual  calculation  and  foresight)  gone  through  life  not 


THE  NERyOUS-MENTAL   0RGANIZ.4TI0N       35 


only  with  security  from  wreckage,  but  with  credit  to 
themselves  and  with  advantage  to  the  world  at  large ; 
and,  assisted  by  favorable  marriage  relations  with 
healthy  persons,  have  not  only  ignored  the  strain  in 
their  own  lives,  but  checked  the  transmission  of  the 
faulty  constitution  to  their  children. 

It  is  not  unreasonable  to  believe  that  the  mental 
energy  or  ambitious  volition  of  the  mind  in  successful 
moral-material  directions,  however  small  its  showing 
may  be  at  the  beginning  (and  it  is  ordinarily  very 
feeble  and  wavering  in  this  temperament),  can  by 
training  and  cultivation  be  stimulated  to  give  the 
needed  impulse  to  individual  efforts  in  the  overcoming 
of  constitutional  inertia  and  perversion,  and  thus  bring 
to  light  valuable  self-conserving  qualities  that  might 
otherwise  be  locked  up  in  the  human  mind.  Thereby 
all  the  dormant  intellectual  forces  will  be  awakened 
into  active  participation  in  the  work  of  a  more  satis- 
factory adjustment  of  the  nervous-mental  structure  to 
the  actual  conditions  of  life,  and  consequently  to  an 
assurance  of  greater  usefulness  and  happiness  than 
would  otherwise  be  the  case. 


II 

THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOWARD 

A  CURE 


37 


i.M...HxlJ.UU 


11 


The  Inebriate's  First  Step  toward  a  Cure 

The  Ineiiriate  in  His  Moral  Aspect 
Moral  Status  of  Inebriates 

Trained  W'ua.  Power  an  Essential  to  Self-preser- 

VAllON 

An  Unselfish  Wife  not  Always  the  liest  for  a  Weak 
Husband 

The  First  Steps  to  be  Taken  nor  the  Inebriate's  Resto. 
ri-don 

Sensitiveness  of  Some  Inebriates  to  Inebriate  Asylums 

Further  Steps  to  be  Taken  by  the  Inebriate  in  Building 
u|)  Moral  Manhootl 

Purgation  of  Kvil  Thoughts  of  Others  an  Essential 

The  Inebriate's   New  Life 

Nothing  More  Dangerous  than  a  Life  of  Ease,  Care- 
lessness, and  Levity 

The  Character  of  the  Temjitations  that  will  Assail  Him 

TheValuet)f  ICach  Day's  Self-denial  in  Petty  Indulgences 

No  Inebriate  Really  Cured  unless  He  has  Puilt  up  Self- 
control  on  the  Structure  oi  Daily  Self-denial 

Reparation  ok  the  Physical  Damages  Wrought  by 
Alcohol 


88 


II 


THE  INEBRIATES  FIRST  STEP  TOWARD 

A  CURE 

The  Inebriate  in  His  Moral  Aspect- 

"  Be  a  man,  whatever  you  do,"  is  not  unfre(iuently  the 
advice  which  men  who  have  achieved  material  success 
give  to  men  who  have  gathered  in  an  abundant  harvest 

of  failures. 

This  suggestion,  urged  almost  to  the  point  of  niiperi- 
ous  command,  is  (luickly  tempered,  however,  by  a  sense 
of  the  folly  of  expecting  manliness  from  a  man  who  has, 
perhaps  for  a  lifetime,  been  insidiously  ungrowing,  and 
dissipating  the  substratum  of  manhood  granted  him  by 
his  forebears,  themselves  possil)b'  more  or  less  derelict 
in  transmitting  the  (pialities  which  comprise  true  man- 
hood.    To  expect,  therefore,  any  manifestations  of  it 
other  than  in  an  affected  form  from  die  intemperate, 
shrinking  wretch  to  whom  the  advice  is  commonly  given 
is  as  vain  as  to  look  for  a  mole-hill  to  evolve  itself  on 
the  instant  into  a  mountain.    One  experiences  a  sudden 
transition  of  feeling  in  the  direction  of  pity  for  the  man 
who,  knowing  his  deficiency  in  this  respect,  assumes  the 
affectation  of  manliness  which  he  does  not  feel,  more 
especially  as  we  reflect  how  utterly  beggared  he  is  as 
he  stands  before  us,  destitute  alike  of  money  and  of 
what  is  of  infinitely  higher  value,  moral  manhood. 

39 


40 


INEBRIETY 


But  where  tliere  has  been  no  greater  abuse  of  the 
moral  nature  than  that  involved  in  greater  or  less  in- 
temperance and  folly,  there  exist  through  a  merciful 
and  kindly  moral  law  stronger  assured  hopes  of  build- 
uig  up  this  fallen  man,  beggar  as  he  is,  to  the  full 
stature  of  manhood  than  with  that  larger  class  of  mor- 
ally blinded  men  who  have  built  up  a  motwyed  success 
in  this  life  at  the  expense  of  every  quality  and  trait  of 
manhood  (including  intemperance  in  every  form  but 
that  of  drink)  needed  to  begin  die  next ;  incapacitating 
themselves  by  a  lifetime  of  insatiable  greed,  injustice, 
cruelties,  self-flatteries,  and  gross  egoism,  from  reaching 
that  real  success,  comprehended  in  the  divine  economy, 
which  is  the  growing  result  of  rightful  moral  doing  and 
gradually  perfecting  renunciation  of  selfish  instincts  in 
successive  periods  of  the  soul's  existence. 

Moral  Status  of  Inebriates* — Chronic  inebriates  are 
rarely,  if  ever,  wicked  ;  they  are  weak,  diseased,  and  im- 
perfecdy  developed.  I  f  they  were  wicked  they  would  uot 
remain  drunkards,  for  uniform  wickedness  implies  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  will  force,  which  is  all  that  the  inebriates 
ordinarily  require  for  a  cure.  The  intensity  of  their 
desires  and  cravings  for  intoxication  evidences  a  greater 
natural  goodness,  as  well  as  a  larger  organic  weakness, 
than  the  sysumatic  drinker  who  drinks  by  rule  ;  but  they 
are,  on  account  of  the  character  and  result  of  that  weak- 
ness, more  difficult  to  cure.  Hioroughly  wicked  persons 
are  sometimes  converted  and  remain  so,  but  the  good- 
hearted,  soft,  and  amiable  men  backslide  continually, 
Their  very  amiability  and  soft-heartedness,  the  result 
of  defective  nervous  brain-elements,  exhibit  the  yield- 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOIVARD  A  CURE    4  1 


ing  composition  of  their  nature,  as  the  strength  of  char- 
acter requisite  for  moral  success  in  Hfe  is  rarely  allied 
with  the  effeminate  qualities  in  men. 

Trained  Will  Power  an  Essential  to 
Self-preservation —A  man  lacking  a  strong  win 

power,  trained  hy  the  necessities  and  demands  of  his 
daily  struggle  for  self-preservation  and  material  ad- 
vancement in  the  carrying  out  of  fixed  purposes,  can 
be  neither  a  wicked  man  nor  a  good  one.     He  may  be 
superlatively  good  at  times,  and  at  other  times  superla- 
tively bad,  but  he  is  neither  long.     His  greater  periods 
of  sobriety  are  spent  either  in  a  kind  of  chronic  moral 
atrophy  of  gentle  amiability  and  good  nature,  with  a 
flavor  of  inoffensiveness  and  negative  goodness,  or  in 
excess  of  energy  and  sanguineness  which  amounts  to 
nothing  practical.     Under  pleasant  circumstances  and 
ordinarily  wholesome  conelitions  of  living,  his  desires 
tend  largely  in  the  direction  of  a  good  life;  but  he  ac- 
complishes nothing,  for  he  cannot  l)ack  up  his  resolves 
with   sufficient  nerve-force  to   give  life  to  them.     A 
dominant  temptation,  like  that  of  the  liquor  hal)it,  seizes 
him,  and,  his  organic  tendencies  being  favorable,  he 
succumbs  to  it,  and  does  not  make  even  a  consistent 
drunkard,  but  has  his  lapses  of  negative  sobriety  and 
goodness  between  times.     He  lacks  backbone,  solidity, 
strength  of  mind,  simply  because  he  has  not  realized 
that  the  sole  cause  of  his  inability  to  control  his  appetite 
for  drink  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  nervous  structure  has 
not  been  healthfully  trained  and  disciplined  from  the 
beginning  in  such  a  manner  as  to  develop  self-control, 


f 


42 


INEBRIETY 


forcible  moral  resistance,  wholesome  desires,  and  will 
likings  for  successful  moral-material  results.  To  offset 
this  neglect  and  to  set  about  his  education  without  ref- 
erence to  age  or  condition  must  hereafter  constitute 
his  life-work,  so  that  every  day  will  put  a  stone  in  the 
new  structure  of  manhood  and  enable  him  to  resist  the 
attacks  of  his  formidable  enemy  in  all  the  days  to  come. 

An  Unselfish  Wife  not  Always  the  Best  for  a 
Weak  Hu.sband. — It  is  often  said  of  an  inebriate,  in 
a  tone  of  wonder  and  reproach,  that  he  had  so  good  a 
wife,  one  who  loved  and  indulged  him.  The  univer- 
sality of  good  wives  to  intemperate  husbands  suggests 
an  inquiry  into  the  connection  they  may  bear  and  the 
influence  they  may  exercise,  however  innocently,  in  the 
downfall  of  their  husbands ;  not  for  the  purpose  of  trans- 
ferring any  part  of  the  blame  and  odium  of  the  man's 
moral  defection  upon  the  woman's  unconscious  and 
defenseless  shoulders,  but  as  a  warning  to  other  good 
wives  who  may  be  pursuing  a  course  of  conduct  which 
antagonizes  the  maintenance  of  a  wholesome  will  force 
in  the  man  ;  and  also  for  the  purpose  of  mitigating  to 
some  extent  the  bitter  animosity  which  many  a  formerly 
loving  spouse  may  entertain  toward  a  ruined  husband 
from  whom  she  is  parted  by  the  inexorable  liquor  curse. 

A  good  woman  is  not  necessarily  a  good  wife.  On  the 
contrary,  she  may  be,  without  meaning  it  and  in  spite  of 
her  conscientious  efforts  to  be  otherwise,  a  very  bad  wife 
to  her  husband,  and  //uif  in  spite  of  her  gentleness,  docil- 
ity, piety,  and  excessive  love  for  him  ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  he  might  not  be  in  the  position  he  occupies  to-day  if, 
instead  of  possessing  these  qualities,  she  had  developed 


ii 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOli'ARD  A  CURE    43 


stronger  or  even  more  selfish  traits  of  character.  The 
continued  exercise  of  the  spirit  of  unselfishness  on  the 
wife's  part  has  helped  in  no  small  degree  to  restrain  the 
husband  from  denying  himself  in  a  hundred  ways ;  and 
all  innocendy,  but  not  less  fatally,  has  fanned  the  flames 
of  self-indulgence  until  his  power  of  resistance,  insidi- 
ously encroached  upon  by  loving  hands,  has  finally  suc- 
cumbed to  her  persistency,  and  his  great  preservative 
against  any  strong  temptation  to  which  he  may  be  con- 
stitutionally inclined  has  become  so  weakened  that  he 
is  unable  to  cope  with  the  strong  desire  for  drink  when 
it  manifests  itself. 

With  a  love  which  has  more  of  the  idolatry  of  the 
fond  and  indulgent  mother  dian  that  of  a  wife,  women 
of  this  sort  are  ordinarily  very  persistent,  even  obstinate, 
in  effacing  themselves  and  in  giving  up  their  own  nat- 
ural inclinations  and  wishes  in  behalf  of  soft-hearted 
and  pliable  husbands.    They  succeed  in  smothering  the 
latter's  protests  against  such  unfairness  and  partiality 
until  their  husbands  finally  yield  and  quietly  accept  as 
the  natural  fitness  of  things  that  which  their  sense  of  jus- 
tice and  magnanimity  at  first  rebelled  at.  Before  either  of 
them  is  aware  of  it  the  husband's  strong  mainstay  and 
security  against  sudden  and  powerful  temptation  are 
gradually  but  surely  undermined  ;  and  when  the  circum- 
stances of  life,  sure  to  be  favorable  at  certain  junctures, 
invite  the  presence  of  an  underlying  vice,  the  man  goes 
down  before  it  ar  d,  in  spite  of  his  manifold  struggles 
and  heroic  resolves  and  efforts,  fails  utterly  to  redeem 

himself. 

It  is  rarely,  if  ever,  that  die  eyes  of  these  good  wives 


44 


INEBRIETY 


are  open  to  the  truth  of  this  matter,  and  they  live  and 
die  in  the  conviction  that  they  made  the  best  of  wives 
to  verv  wicked  husbands,  who  sacrificed  the  love  of  a 
good  woman  to  a  greater  love  for  drink. 

The  First  Steps  to  be  Taken  for  the  Inebriate's 
Restoration. — It  is  possiljle  that  this  treatise  may  be 
read  by  an  inebriate  who  is  engaged  in  a  soul-  and 
body-destroying  fit  of  intemperance,  the  duration,  re- 
sults, and  final  ending  of  which  he  cannot  foresee ;  but 
through  it  all,  hopeless  and  despairing,  he  has  an  in- 
tense desire  to  lie  down  and  never  rise  again  to  sin  and 
si'lTering.  Jfe  cannot  stop;  f/ir  power  is  not  within 
him  to  stop  of  his  oion  accont.  He  has  so  weakened 
his  great  preservative  against  sin  and  suffering  that  it 
fails  to  respond  to  his  call.  He  has  not  even  the  power 
to  remove  himself  from  temptation  by  voluntary  con- 
finement, and  it  remains  for  his  solicitous  friends  to  step 
in  and  through  persuasion  and  argument  (never  by 
force)  induce  him  to  sanction  their  confining  him  for  a 
period  not  exceeding  three  months  (longer  than  this  is 
not  necessary  and  may  be  demoralizing)  in  a  private 
asylum  for  security  and  rest,  during  which  he  can  re- 
solve upon  his  future  life  and  make  the  necessary  ar- 
rangements for  entering  upon  the  course  of  training, 
discipline,  and  association  the  best  suited  to  bring  about 
a  permanent  cure. 

Sensitiveness  of  Some  Inebriates  to  Inebriate  Asy- 
lums.— To  those  intemperate  men  who  possess  pecu- 
liarly sensitive  traits  of  character,  and  have  an  especial 
aversion  to  promiscuous  intercourse  with  others  who 
carry  the  brand  of  their  dissolute  lives  in  continuous 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOIVARD  A  CURE 


45 


lawless  and  vicious  conduct,  the  inebriate  asylum  is 
armed  with  a  horror  incomprehensible  to  more  rugged 
temperaments,  and  particular  tact  should  be  employed 
in  subduing  these  feehngs  on  their  part  so  as  to  gain 
their  consent  to  conHnement,  for  their  protests  may  be 
largely  justifiable.     It  has  been  conclusively  demon- 
strated that  /t;//.!,''  confinement  in  these  asylums  has  been 
attended  by  most  demoralizing  effects,  from  which  a 
short  one  is  comparatively  exempt  through  the  advan- 
tages received.     There  are  drunkards  and  drunkards, 
and  the  one  may,  in  all  other  respects  but  that  of  pos- 
sessing an  occasionally  indulged  craving  for  alcoholic 
stimulants,  possess  a  purity  of  life  the  very  antipodes  of 
the  other,  who  may  be  depraved  all  the  way  through. 
The   compulsory  association  of  two  such  natures  in 
those  institutions  where  isolation  and  retirement  are 
impossibilities  cannot  be  good. 

At  the  present  time  there  are  quite  a  number  of 
smaller  institutions  or  homes  located  within  thirty  to 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
in  healthy  country  places,  presided  over  by  physicians 
who  admit  persons  of  good  character  afflicted  with  this 
habit,  and  give  them  the  care,  attention,  and  suital)le 
freedom  which  they  may  require.  The  medical  journals 
abound  in  references  to  them. 

Further  Steps  to  be  Taken  by  the  Inebriate  in 
Building  up  Moral  Manhood.— Tracking  a  great  ob- 
ject in  life,  the  man  has  hitherto  been  like  a  ship  with- 
out a  rudder ;  but  he  is  no  longer  purposeless  and 
without  an  ambition,  for  he  has  a  grand,  a  heroic  one, 
being  resolved  to  live  and  die  a  free  man.     Bound  in 


40 


INFRRIFTY 


chains  that  have  tied  him  hand  and  foot  for  many  a 
degraded  year,  he  has  at  last  set  about  to  free  himself 
of  his  grinding  bondage.  To  accomplish  this,  every 
faculty  of  his  mind,  every  force  of  his  body,  each  op- 
I)ortunity  that  life  presents,  must  be  brought  into  ac- 
tivity and  made  subservient  to  the  furtherance  of  t'  J'^ 
object.  It  is  his  great  ambition,  and  all  else  must 
made  subordinate  to  it.  He  realizes  that  no  negative 
life  of  goodness  is  possible  for  him,  but  rather  that  he 
must  take  the  kingdom  of  manliness  by  storm,  and  force 
the  underlying  vices  of  his  character  to  the  surface,  in 
order  to  get  at  and  destroy  them. 

In  reviewing  himself  in  his  individual  egoism,  he  dis- 
covers that  he  must  correct  all  of  his  estimates,  judg- 
ments, and  opinions  of  persons  and  tl  V-gs  with  which 
he  has  had  to  do  in  the  past,  especially  those  evil  thoughts 
of  others  which  spring  up  in  his  mind  from  time  to 
time,  and  gather  strength  the  more  they  are  indulged 
in.  He  reviews  the  suspicions  and  distrusts  which  have 
held  full  sway  in  his  mind  and  hindered  all  p'-evious 
efforts  at  recovery :  how  such  and  such  persons  have 
done  him  irreparable  harm,  getting  everything  out  of 
him  that  was  worth  the  getting,  and  returning  nothing 
but  evil ;  how  they  mounted  up  from  obscurity  into 
respectable  positions  in  life  through  his  kindly  assis- 
tance in  the  beginning,  and  then  threw  down  the  ladder 
when  he  was  in  need  of  their  help  ;  how  fawning,  hum- 
ble, and  grateful  they  had  been  when  he  had  money, 
influence,  and  social  position,  spitting  at  him  when  all 
these  were  gone ;  how  his  fair-weather  and  easy-sailing 
friends  stuck  to  him  like  brothers  in  prosperity,  and 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOIVARD  A  CURE    47 


abandoned  him  in  adversity ;  how  the  one  nearer  and 
dearer  than  all  others  was  the  first  to  throw  him  off, 
and  in  all  his  after  years  of  suffering  pitilessly  refused 
to  sacrifice  one  jot  of  her  comforts  or  run  the  slightest 
risk  in  order  to  aid  by  her  presence  his  sincere  and 
constant  efforts  at  recovery ;  how  in  his  mind  he  has 
applied  a  literal  interpretation  to  Christ's  statement  that 
one's  enemies  are  of  his  own  household.  Hundreds  of 
such  thoughts  usurp  sovereignty  over  his  mind,  making 
it  still  more  sensitive  and  open  to  contamination  from 
the  poison  of  suspicion. 

Purgation  of  Evil  Thoughts  of  Others  an  Essen- 
tial.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  settle 

this  whole  matter  for  good  before  he  can  expect  any 
advancement  in  his  manly  progress.     His  success  de- 
pends upon  die  morally  wholesome  position  he  now 
occupies.    Possibly  these  things  are  as  his  mind  repro- 
duces them,  but   more  probably  they  have  assumed 
extravagant  proportions  and   a  realism    through   the 
self-indulgence  of  continually  thinking  of  them  in  his 
mentally  depressed  and  sensitive  condition,  and  a  calm 
and   dispassionate  review  of   each   and  every  occur- 
rence upon  which  he  bases  his  opinions  will  fail  to 
substantiate  them.     At  any  rate,  it  is  safer  for  him  to 
assume  at  the  beginning  of  his  mental  investigadons 
that  they  may  be  the  outcome  of  his  distempered  ima- 
gination-that  they  may  have  become  so  vasdy  ex- 
aggerated by  his  fallacious  judgment  as  to  be  a  fiction 
with  a  network  of  truth  only ;  and  then  to  endeavor  to 
lose  sight  of  his  own  individuality,  its  personal  bias, 
selfish  instincts  and  feelings,  and  take  upon  himself 


48 


INEBRIETY 


the  personalities  of  these  iiulividLuils  whom  he  charges 
with  evil-doing,  with  their  instincts  of  self-preservation, 
worldly  advancement,  and  expediency,  their  perhaps 
smaller  altruistic  intuitions  and  habits  of  mind,  for  the 
purjjose  of  studying  their  case  as  if  he  were  their  legal 
counselor,  determined  to  prove  them  guiltless  of  these 
charges. 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  by  so  doing  he  will 
have  lightened  the  load  of  their  iniquities  by  the  cut- 
ting away  of  fictitious  injuries  to  at  least  one  third  of 
their  original  bulk.  If  this  be  the  case,  he  may  as  well 
transfer  the  remainder  to  his  own  account  and  feel 
justified  in  the  conviction  that  none  would  have  ac- 
crued if  he  had  led  a  temperate,  manly,  and  well-con- 
ducted life,  and  placed  no  temptation  in  the  way  of 
others  to  profit  by  his  weakness  and  faults  or  put  a 
vicious  interpretation  upon  them ;  and,  moreover,  he 
will  feel  persuaded  that  he  himself,  under  analogous 
conditions,  might  not  have  acted  very  differenUy.  In 
this  way  he  will  have  unloaded  his  mind  of  a  great 
incubus,  which  would  otherwise  prove  an  insuperable 
obstacle  to  moral  advancement. 

The  Inebriate's  New  Life.— Through  the  silent 
processes  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  goodness  the  un- 
developed man  has  come  to  light.  He  has  been  through 
the  fire  of  suffering ;  he  is  lacerated  and  broken ;  the 
inherent  forces  of  his  mind,  opening  with  a  revolt,  have 
gone  through  a  revolution,  and  it  is  now  the  dawn  of 
his  new  life.  His  restored  mind  beholds  responsibilities 
and  possibilities  in  the  future  that  he  never  saw  in  the 
past.     He  has  become  a  responsible  being  even  unto 


THE  INFBRMTF'S  FIRST  STEP  TOIVARD  A  CURE    49 


himself.  The  dead  past  is  burying  its  dead.  Out 
of  that  suffering  past  he  has  gained  experience: 
through  it  the  Hght  which  now  interpenetrates  him 
has  come. 

With  this  bitter  knowledge  and  with  this  moral  light, 
he  starts  anew  to  weave  with  silent  endurance  and  per- 
sistency the  fabric  of  his  new  structure  of  manhood,  to 
build  his  house  upon  a  rock ;  for  on  that  foundation 
alone  can  he  rear  his  safeguard  against  moral  degra- 
dation, his  security  against  future  downfalls,  and  his 
preservative  from  a  living  death  a  thousand  times 
worse  than  the  physical  death  which  at  times  has  held 
him  so  closely  within  its  grasp. 

He  finds  that  he  cannot  live  the  same  life,  that  he 
cannot  enjoy  the  same  pleasures.  His  sole  hold  on  the 
miserable  existence  of  the  past  has  been  throu-h  his 
indulgence  in  drink.  Without  that  life  gave  him  no 
pleasure.  Hereafter  his  enjoyments  must  come  from 
the  higher  part  of  his  mind,  and  not  from  the  lower ; 
from  his  spiritualized  mind,  not  from  his  animal  mind. 
His  kingdom  of  pleasure  is  to  be  found  within,  and  not 
looked  for  without.  His  diseased  imagination  must 
be  brought  into  heakhful  subjection  until  it  has  thor- 
oughly learned  its  lesson  and  sees  things  as  they  really 
are,  and  not  as  they  seem  to  be ;  until  it  confesses  that 
life  is  real  and  earnest  and  does  not  die  when  the  body 
dies,  but  continues  onward,  perhaps  in  other  worlils, 
under  better  or  worse  conditions  of  living  as  they  are 
invited  in  this. 

Nothing  More  Dangerous  than  a  Life  of  Ease, 
Carelessness,  and  Levity ♦— By  the  natural  order  and 


50 


INEBRIETY 


fitness  of  things,  his  h'fe  for  a  time  will  be  a  liard  one, 
and  it  is  good  for  him  that  it  should  be  so;  not  as  a 
punishment,  but  as  the  only  condition,  if  rightly  used, 
by  which  he  can  gain  the  strength  of  resistance  he 
needs.  If  his  circumstances  qualify  this  too  much  it 
may  be  better  that  he  should  make  it  harder  of  himself 
for  his  greater  gr<«wth,  for  experience  has  taught  him 
that  nothing  is  more  dangerous  than  a  life  of  ease,  care- 
lessness, and  levity,  and  he  feels  that  he  cannot  live  the 
old  life  and  enjoy  immunity  from  drink. 

In)rtunately  for  him  now,  his  former  sources  of  grati- 
fication were  of  a  belittling  character,  and  it  is  well  that 
he  cannot  return  to  them  with  safety.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  higher  grade  of  pui suits  only  give  pleasure 
outside  of  drink,  and  it  is  with  these  he  must  make 
accjuaintance  and  determinedly  go  to  work  to  absorb 
all  of  their  value.  At  first  the  old  disgust  with  which 
they  ins[)ired  him  will  continue,  but  not  for  long.  His 
mind  will  gradually  absorb  the  healthful  mental  tonic, 
and  he  will  subsequently  wonder  how  the  senseless  and 
puerile  pastimes  of  his  past  life  ever  pleased  him.  11ie 
first  opening  up  of  self-respect  will  inspire  him  with  a 
keener  delight  than  alcohol  ever  yielded ;  and  the  in- 
creasing expansion  of  the  moral  side  of  his  nature  will 
continue  to  throw  out  light  that  will  guide  him  onward 
in  his  heroic  ambition  to  live  and  die,  be  the  living 
short  or  long,  a  growing,  manly  man. 

The  Character  of  the  Temptations  that  will  As- 
sail Him* — He  will  in  his  progress  be  assailed  from 
within,  and  not  from  without.  The  breaking  up,  if  it 
come,  will  result  from  insidious  temptations  attacking 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOH''ARn  A  CURE    Dl 


him  from  within  his  mind,  long  before  the  social  ones 
without  have  any  effect  upon  him  ;  and  the  strongest  of 
all  will  come  through  his  aversion  to  i)hysi(al  discom- 
forts, the  lack  of  energy  and  spirit,  and  tin-ough  dis- 
couragements. 

He  imagines  that  he  is  physically  falling  off,— per- 
haps declining  into  consumption,— that  his  system  is 
surely  breaking  up,  that  local  complaints  are  verging 
into  chronic  invalidism,  and  depression  into  melan- 
cholia.    His  tricky  imagination  begins  to  juggle  with 
his  reason,  and  forces  him  to  believe  that  he  has  only 
to  resort  to  alcohol  in   some  shape    for  a  deterrent 
and  a  cure.     Thence  follow  his  sophistical  commun- 
ings :  that  his  system  imperatively  requires  bracing  up, 
and  that  it  can  be  done  in  no  other  way  than  through 
homeopathic  doses  of  spirits,  to  be  taken  only  as  medi- 
cine and  to  be  thrown  aside  as  soon  as  the  emergency 
permits;  that  alcohol  is  indeed  a  prodigious  vitalizer 
and  seems  to  revolutionize  the  internal  machinery  and 
start  it  afresh  on  its  active  mission,  and  how  rarely  he 
was  sick  of  any  of  the  ordinary  ills  affecting  the  body 
when  he  drank  ;  that  it  shows  greater  evidence  of  man- 
hood to  use  liquor  in  moderation  and   only  for  the 
stomach's  sake  than  not  at  all ;  that  both  body  and 
mind  will  be  the  stronger  for  a  litde  animal  indulgence, 
and,  now  that  he  does  not  expect  to  live  much  longer  at 
the  best,  he  might  as  well  have  a  litde  enjoyment  out  of 
the  balance  of  his  life,  particularly  as  he  has  developed 
sufficient  power  of  self-control  and  of  antagonism  to 
self-indulgence  to  make  it  safe.    These  are  some  of  the 
thoughts  which  assail  him.    In  whatever  way  the  desire 


INI.BRIin'Y 


for  drink  niatiifests  itsi-lf,  it  is  always  tlie  sii^'K^'stion  of 
tlu-  (liscasul  iinayinalioii,  the  outcomo  of  the  i»artially 
restored  iiiiiul,  wliicli  if  yielded  to  will  have  l)iit  one 
ending,  the  pulling  down  of  the  growing  fabric  of  man- 
hood to  the  mire,  hut  which  if  resisted  will  become 
a  source  of  renewed  and  renewing  strength. 

There  will  be  repeated  attacks  of  this  kind  upon  his 
growing  manhood,  and  he  should  feei  proud  anil  hope- 
ful every  time  he  has  crushed  these  insidious  assailants 
under  his  feet.  Rather  than  yield  to  them,  let  him  die, 
if  die  he  must,  struggling  and  fighting  his  way  onward 
to  a  manlier  life,  encouraged  in  the  faith  that  his  efforts 
will  receive  no  check  by  that  form  of  death,  but  will 
continue  on,  under  more  favorable  circumstances,  in 
another  life,  and  i)erhaps  others  again,  still  growing  in 
intensity  until  they  rii)en  unto  perfect  develoi)ment  in 
the  last  and  eternal  life  of  all. 

The  Valoc  of  Each  Day's  Self-denial  in  Petty 
Indulgences. — It  would  be  well  for  the  intemperate 
man  to  bear  continually  in  mind  that  in  proportion  as 
he  yields  and  gives  way  to  hi*  daily  weaknesses,  foibles, 
anil  smaller  unworthy  inclinations,  there  will  be  a  con- 
timiing  growth  of  his  desire  to  drink,  even  though  it 
may  not  be  apparent  to  himself,  and  that  it  is  certain 
to  break  out  with  renewed  virulence  when  least  ex- 
pected ;  but  that  the  strength  he  gathers  by  the  prac- 
tice of  daily  self-denial  in  matters  outside  of  drink  is 
not  only  sufficient  to  check  the  progressive  growth  of 
the  disease,  but  to  leave  a  reserve  of  constantly  ac- 
cumulating strength  to  meet  the  more  pressing  demands 
and  attacks  of  his  great  temptation. 


THE  INl-liRMnrS  riRST  STFr  TOH'AKD  A  CURE    DM 


This  si'lf-denying  life  will  never  make  him  less  able 
to  support  himself  and  family,  but  rather  the  more, 
lie  will  not  build  up  moneyed  wealth.  That  he  could 
not  do  under  any  circumstances,  for  his  present  position 
shows  conclusively  that  his  organic  disposition  is  not  in 
harmony  with  the  acquisition  of  money,  which,  after 
all,  is  of  very  little  importance  comj)ared  with  the  rear- 
ing of  the  incorrui)til)le  structure  of  moral  manhood. 
It  is  not  optional  with  him,  it  is  compulsory,  this  life 
of  daily  self-renunciation,  and  it  is  fortunate  for  him 
that  it  is  so.  The  .scheming  for  wealth  must  give  way 
to  the  scheming  to  build  up  a  perfect  character,  and  in 
the  end  the  wealth  mny  be  added  unto  him. 

No  Inebriate  Really  Cored  unless  He  has  Etjilt 
up  Self-control  on  the  Structure  of  Daily  Self-de- 
„j3^I^ — It  is  inexpedient  to  point  to  this  man  or  to  that 
and  say.  These  men  have  once  been  drunkards,  and  are 
now  successful  speculators  and  wealthy  men  of  the  day  ; 
they  have  not  drunk  for  years,  or  they  drink  without 
becoming  intoxicated  ;  and  they  arc  neither  self-denying 
nor  especially  moral  men.  If  it  is  true  that  they  were 
at  one  time  completely  subservient  to  the  toxic  mania, 
then,  unless  they  have  built  up  a  strong  will  force 
through  the  daily  exercise  of  a  petty  force  in  resisting 
immaterial  trifles  and  moral  weaknesses,  the  habit  of 
their  brains  is  sleeping,  and  under  conditions  inviting 
its  return  will  break  out  again  and  prostrate  them  and 
their  wealth  into  ruin. 

Only  when  the  will  is  trained  and  educated  through 
mental- ///<vv?/ and  physical  hygiene,  until  it  has  become 
so  prompi,  effective,  and  perfect  in  its  working  as  to 


54 


INEBRIETY 


carry  on  successful  coTiflicts  with  the  man's  recurrent 
appetite  for  indulgence  in  intoxicants  without  his  voli- 
tion and  without  his  consciousness  of  the  struggle  going 
on  wichin  him,  can  the  inebriate  be  said  to  be  perma- 
nently restored. 

The  chronic  inebriate,  in  the  strong  and  almost  ter- 
rible resistances  he  has  made  from  time  to  time  against 
yielding  to  his  craving  for  drink,  has  made  it  possible  for 
himself  to  put  forth  sufficient  force  toward  extinguish- 
ing the  smaller  faults  and  vices  of  his  character;  and, 
if  he  is  sincere  and  earnest  in  his  endeavor  to  fortify 
himself  at  all  points,  he  will  not  let  a  day  pass  without 
making  a  gain,  however  apparently  insignificant,  in  this 
direction. 


Reparation  of  the  Physical  Damages 
"Wrought  by  Alcohol— it  is  only  in  the  vis 

tnedkatrix  vaiitrce^  in  the  hygienic  treatment  applied  to 
both  body  and  mind  subsequent  to  the  withdrawal  of 
the  narcotic  poison,  that  the  physical  damages  wrought 
by  inebriety  can  be  repaired ;  and,  as  the  treatment  in 
early  youth  involving  the  preinebriate  morbid  condition 
and  strengthening  his  self-control  (fully  entered  into 
farther  on)  covers  all  the  further  phases  of  his  cure, 
the  patient  should  make  this  matter  his  study,  and  be 
willing  to  begin  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder  and  carry 
on  his  recuperative  training  the  same  as  the  youth  who 
begins  life  with  a  natural  inheritance  of  morbid  nervous 
conditions  or  of  the  inebriate  diathesis  direct. 

As  the  mature  adult  inebriate  has  gained  experience, 
caution,  prudence,  foresight,  and  a  considerable  amount 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  FIRST  STEP  TOIVARD  A  CURE    55 


of  sagacity,  intelligence,  and  will  strength  through  his 
sufferings,  as  well  as  an  intense  desire  for  moral  health, 
there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  make  as  good  a 
run,  with  equally  good  chances,  as  his  younger  com- 
petitor, who  starts  out  inexperienced,  with  all  his  fresh 
impulses  dead  against  him.     He  is  older,  it  is  true,  but 
never  too  old  to  hve  right,  particularly  as  hving  right 
will  make  life  sweeter  to  him  all  along.     He  must  for- 
get his  age  and  regard  himself  as  once  more  a  youth 
setting  out  on  his  journey  through  hfe,  with  his  educa- 
tion, training,  and  new  associations  to  achieve ;  then, 
with  healthy  aspirations  to  the  fore,  whatever  else  he 
may  do,  he  must  never  return  to  his  old  degradation. 
Let  him  not  live  to  say  he  has  abandoned  the  ship  and 
that  it  is  too  late  to  mend. 


I 


Ill 

THE  REMEDYING  OF  THE  PREINEBRIATE 
MORBID  CONDITIONS  AND  THE 
STRENGTHENING  OF  THE 
BASES  OF  SELF- 
CONTROL 


67 


Ill 


The    Remedying   of  the    Preinebriate    Morbid 

Conditions  and  the  Strengthening  of 

the  Bases  of  Self-control 

Treatment  in  Early  Youth 

The  Masculine  Treatment  an  Essential  in  Early  Life 

The  Character  of  His  Occupations,  Amusements,  and 

Exercises 
Sanitary  Regimen  in  Ventilation,  Cleanliness,  and  Diet 
Entire  Abstinence  from  all  Stimulants  and  Narcotics  an 

Essential 
To  Correct  the  Absence  of  Ambition  in  Moral-Material 

Directions 
The  Training  of  the  Executive  Force  or  Moral  Will 

Power 
Moral  Defection  in  Well-trained  Youths 


58 


Ill 


THE  REMEDYING  OF  THE  PREINEBRI- 
ATE  MORBID  CONDITIONS  AND  THE 
STRENGTHENING  OF  THE  BASES  OF 
SELF-CONTROL 


Treatment  in  Early  Youth.-The  family  physi- 
cian, the  parents,  or  guardians  who  discover  a  child  to 
be  neurotic,  and  from  their  knowledge  of  ancestors, 
collateral  relatives,  and  family  antecedents  generally 
know  that  a  predisposition  to  nervous  disease  is  likely 
to  present  itself,  should  exercise  all  the  influence  they 
possess  to  have  a  healthy,  robust  training  provided. 

The  self-control  should  be  developed,  the  bodily 
health  should  be  carefully  regarded,  and  motives  and 
purposes  supplied  which  will  give  force,  persistency, 
unity,  and  success  to  the  endeavors  of  the  patient.  As 
there  is  always  present  a  large  sensitiveness  to  nutri- 
tive derangements,  scrofula,  epilepsy,  phthisis,  wasting 
diarrheas,  etc.,  the  greatest  care  should  be  observed 
in  the  selection  of  a  hygienic  and  sanitary  discipline 
the  best  adapted  to  prevent  an  unhealthy  development 
of  this  constitution  into  those  exaggerated  conditions 
which  involve  the  complete  perversion  of  the  nervous- 
mental  health. 

50 


no 


INERRIETY 


It  should  be  borne  continually  in  mind  that  with  every 
(lci)arture  from  the  moral  law  governing  the  physiolog- 
ical well-being,  that  is,  from  rightful ihmkm^  and  ng/if/u/ 
acting,  at  this  period  of  life  (even  in  petty  delinquen- 
cies, insignificant  and  immaterial  trifles,  avoidance  and 
omissions  of  duty)  there  is:  (i)  a  corresponding  depar- 
ture from  the  health  standard;  (2)  a  corresponding 
diminution  of  the  power  of  self-control;  (3)  a  corre- 
sponding step  in  life  to  be  retraced,  a  debt  instead  of 
a  gain  ;  and  that  the  sum  of  these  departures  constitutes, 
sooner  or  kiter,  an  aggregate  condition  of  mental  and 
l)hysical  health  which  renders  suffering,  misery,  and 
ultimate  failure  in  life  a  foregone  certainty;  but  tliat 
obedience  to  these,  trifling  though  they  may  seem  at 
first,  will  gradually  build  up  a  basis  of  character  so 
organized  as  to  enable  it  to  resist  the  largest  temptations 
and  establish  on  a  pern.anent  basis  an  enduring  power 
of  self-control. 

The  Masculine  Treatment  an  Essential  in  Early 
Life. — There  must  l)e  no  coddling  of  the  patient,  no 
encouragement  given  to  induce  him  to  regard  himself 
as  an  object  of  commiseration,  and  to  indulge  in  pity 
for  himself  as  one  inducted  into  life  but  partially  made, 
and  a  victim  of  predestined  ruin.  He  should,  on  the 
contrary,  be  made  to  believe  that  his  temperament 
is  of  such  a  character  as  to  be  extraordinarily  capable, 
through  judicious  training  and  education,  of  achieving 
almost  phenomenal  success,  and  at  the  same  time  ex- 
ceptionally cai)able,  under  improjier  training,  of  achiev- 
ing a  phenomenal  failure ;  and  that  whether  it  shall  be 
the  one  or  the  other  is  dependent  almost  altogether 


RRMF DYING    /iND   STRENGTHENING 


61 


upon  his  own  individiuil  efforts  and  upon  obedience  to 
physiological  laws  of  health  both  of  body  and  of  mind 

to  begin  with. 

'I'he  coddling  treatment  in  early  youth  is  almost  al- 
ways reprehensil)le,  but  with  this  temperament  it  is 
especially  antagonistic  to  health.  The  youth  must  be 
made  self-reliant  as  early  as  possible  by  the  spur  of 
necessity,  and  all  influences  and  encouragements  tend- 
ing to  nourish  his  inherent  prochvities  to  self-indulgence 
of  mind  and  body  or  dependence  on  others  should  be 
promptly  removed  from  him. 

The  earlier  he  is  made  acquainted  with  the  possibil- 
ities of  his  constitution,  the  better;  and  in  carrying  out 
his  training  especial  care  should  be  exercised  not  to 
impress  too  rigorously  upon  his  mind  the  consequences 
of  every  dereliction  from  duty,  but  to  allow  him  to  judge 
f(^r  himself  as  much  as  possible.     Excessive  solicitude, 
continued  warning  and  holding  over  his  head  the  re- 
sultant penalty  of  disobedience,  especially  when  be- 
stowed early  and  late  in  moralizing  lectures,  will  prob- 
ably  be  much  more  prejudicial  than  to  allow  him  to 
take  his  chance  in  life  unenlightened.    Children  cannot 
be  readily  molded  to  set  patterns ;  the  latter  must  be 
largely  and  gradually  made  to  conform  to  them  without 
lostng  their  ultimate  intention.    Abnormal  traits  of  char- 
acter are  too  persistent  to  be  removed  altogether,  and 
it  may  not  be  well  that  they  should  be  effaced,  even  were 
it  possible,  but  rather  that  they  should  be  trained  to  bear 
in  a  direction  that  promises  the  best  results,  allowing 
nature  to  work  as  far  as  possible  without  too  great 
interference  with  the  growth. 


62 


INEBRIETY 


^ 


It  sometimes  happens  that  evidences  of  inebriety 
exhibit  themselves  very  early  in  life.  If  this  be  the 
case,  it  shows  unmistakably  that  the  youth  is  organi- 
cally unbalanced,  that  his  brain-centres  are  disturbed, 
and  that  all  effeminate  treatment  will  only  be  adding  to 
the  intensity  of  the  disease.  There  must  be  no  delay,  no 
indulgence,  in  the  hope  that  he  will  see  the  error  of  his 
ways  and  amend  of  his  own  moral  volition,  and  that  the 
same  association  and  home  discipline  can  be  maintained. 

The  environment  must  be  broken  immediately,  and 
the  patient  regarded  not  as  a  wilful  violator  of  decency, 
of  religion,  and  of  the  sacred  home,  to  be  punished  for 
his  wilful  sinning,  but  as  one  who  has  suddenly  devel- 
oped symptoms  of  a  dangerous  mentaJ  malady  which 
requires  immediate  restorative  measures  to  cure.  And 
as  the  only  known  cure  of  diseases  of  the  nervous- 
mental  organization,  involving  the  loss  of  self-control 
and  the  power  of  moral  resistance,  is  by  strengthening 
the  self-control  through  building  up  the  general  health 
of  mind  and  body,  so  immediate  steps  should  be  taken 
to  carry  out  every  available  plan  of  doing  this,  con- 
tinually bearing  in  mind  that  the  new  training  and 
treatment  must  begin  at  the  foundation  and  be  very 
gradual. 

The  Character  of  His  Occupations,  Amusements, 
and  Exercises. — The  training  of  the  mind  to  self-con- 
trol and  to  avoid  introspection,  is  often  found  in  healthy 
occupations  which  make  regular  drafts  upon  body  and 
mind  alike.  The  earlier  it  begins,  the  better.  The 
permanent  occupation  should  be  of  the  routine  order 
and  one  not  dependent  for  success  upon  the  assump- 


REMF.DYiNG   AND   STRENGTHENING 


63 


tion  of  wearing  responsibilities  and  anxieties.  The 
mind  should  be  strengthened  by  giving  it  a  rudimentary 
basis  of  sound,  wholesome  tenacity,  vigor,  and  capacity 
to  fit  it  for  an  education  which  properly  does  not  begin 
until  the  youth  ordinarily  leaves  scbool  or  college. 

Fresh  blood  and  pure  air  form  the  basis  of  a  well-regu- 
lated nervous-nvntal  temperament,  and  fresh  blood  is 
dependent  upon  strict  obedience  to  moral-physiological 
laws.  The  pure  air  of  dry  marine  resorts  along  the 
Atlantic  coast,  which  induces  neither  too  great  nor  too 
little  nervous  action,  is  the  best  to  give  healthful  activ- 
ity  to  the  nutritive  processes  and  improvement  in  con- 
stitutional vigor.  It  may  be  called  a  mild  tonic  climate. 
High  altitudes  and  dry  deserts  should  be  avoided. 

Light  gymnastic  exercises  in  the  open  air,  slowly 
spun  out  for  a  long  time,  and  not  allowed  to  exhaust 
themselves  quickly  by  an  indiscriminate  and  reckless 
waste  of  nerve-force,  must  be  prescribed.  The  amuse- 
ments, exercises,  and  employments  should  always  be  in 
the  open  air,  and  those  that  can  be  done  in  a  few 
minutes  by  an  extra  spurt  should  be  made  to  last  an 
hour.  The  great  fault  of  this  temperament  is  that  when 
left  to  its  own  impulses  it  does  everything  at  once  and 
nothing  long.  Everything  soon  tires.  The  patient, 
calculating  steps  of  the  tortoise,  and  not  the  swift,  leap- 
ing movements  of  the  hare,  are  the  example  to  be  fol- 
lowed. All  strains  and  overexertion  are  to  be  avoided. 
The  forces  of  both  body  and  mind  must  be  built  up 
Httle  by  litde,  and  the  hardest  lesson  to  learn  is  the 
overcoming  of  the  instinctive  longing  to  get  through 
with  everything  quickly  and  to  reach  results  at  once. 


ct 


INllBRIHTY 


'I'lie  i)hysical  training  must  he,  like  that  of  the  athlete, 
a  strict  obechence  to  tlie  regimen  and  rules  prescribed 
by  those  who  are  thoroughly  accjuaiiited  with  all  the 
potentialities  of  such  a  vital  force  under  proper  cul- 
tivation. 

Walking  is  perhaps  the  safest  and  best  mode  of  exer- 
cising all  the  muscles  of  the  body,  but  even  this  should 
be  carried  out  under  prescribed  rules  and  graduated 
until  it  reaches  five  or,  if  able,  ten  miles  daily.  Walk- 
ing in  cn)wded  cities  is  not  walking  in  the  purest  of  at- 
mospheres, so  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  its 
l)eneficent  results  is  wanting;  nevertheless  it  is  better 
than  not  walking  at  all. 

In  this,  as  in  all  things,  the  patient  should  take  plenty 
of  time  and  walk  slowly,  not  allowing  the  spirit  of  emu- 
lation or  rivalry  to  provoke  great  feats  of  strength  and 
endurance.  "With  such  nervous  temperaments  there  is 
a  conspicuous  ability  in  early  youth  to  accomplish  suc- 
cessfully any  such  achievement,  but  years  afterward, 
when  the  memory  of  these  childish  contests  is  altogether 
lost  sight  of,  those  strains  on  the  nervous  organization 
will  be  felt  in  a  condition  of  impaired  health  and  corre- 
sponding loss  of  self -control.  Litt/e  by  little  is  the  only 
rule,  and  neglect  of  this  injunction  will  as  certainly  re- 
sult in  failure  in  life  as  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun. 
F.very  cause  has  its  effect,  although  that  effect  may  not 
be  felt  immediately. 

Sanitary  Regimen  in  Ventilation,  Cleanliness^ 
and  Diet* — An  excessive  indolence  of  mind  and  body 
is  probably  as  prejudical  to  the  nervous  system  as  ex- 
cessive toil,  fatigue,  and  overex'^rtion,  for  in  both  cases 


KrMEDYING   JND  S I RrNGTHENING 


fl5 


tliey  produce  untiatund  strains,  the  one  dirertly  and  the 
other  indirectly.  In  tlie  former  case  the  nervous  system 
demands  a  regular  supply  of  activity  in  order  success, 
fully  to  carry  on  its  functions,  abhors  a  continued  inac- 
tive state,  and,  finding  its  calls  neglected,  produces  a 
morbid  craving  which  creates  a  desire  for  some  sort  of 
artificial  stimulation. 

The  patient  should  begin  early  in  life  to  accustom 
himself  or  herself  to  take  daily,  before  breakfast,  cold- 
water  douches,  or,  if  these  are  impracticable,  cold-water 
towel  baths,  followed  by  vigorous  rubbings,  and  this 
should  be  continued  all  through  the  year.  It  will  fi- 
nally enable  the  weakest  constitution  to  endure  the  ex- 
tremes of  the  weather.  A  short  walk  of  a  few  minutes 
before  breakfast  is  useful. 

The  matter  of  ventilation  should  be  uniformly  re- 
garded as  a  prime  factor  in  health.  At  least  one  win- 
dow of  the  bedroom  should  always  be  kept  open  a  little 
from  the  top  and  bottom,  but  care  should  be  exercised 
against  allowing  strong  currents  in  their  progress  through 
the  room,  if  the  doors  are  kept  open,  to  strike  against 
the  body.  The  bedstead  placed  at  the  unexposed  cor- 
ner of  the  apartment  will  remedy  this.  Strong  drafts 
should  be  carefully  avoided. 

The  practice  of  overeating  to  the  point  of  subsequent 
discomfort  or  satiety  is  a  severe  strain  on  the  nervous 
system,  and  is  regarded  by  medical  authorities  as  being 
even  more  prejudic"  d  than  that  of  overdrinking.  The 
diet  shjuld  be  regulated  to  the  extent  of  excluding  a 
few  objectionable  items  out  o^  a  superabundant  whole- 
some and  palatable  dietary.     Food  which  contains  too 


i      : 


00 


INEBRIETY 


m 


large  a  percentage  of  carbon  makes  continued  encroach- 
ments on  the  nervous  vitality  and  liealtli.  The  nitrog- 
enous elements  in  food  are  the  most  to  be  regarded, 
as  these  seem  to  reconcile  themselves  better  to  the  men- 
tal and  physical  processes  and  to  build  u^)  flesh  at  the 
same  time.  Fat  meats,  overcooked  meats,  pork  in  all 
forms,  veal,  excess  of  butter,  cheese,  oils,  syrups,  tea, 
and  cofifee  must  be  expunged  from  the  bill  of  fare,  as 
well  as  preserves,  condiments  of  all  kinds,  pastry,  and 
puddings.  Let  there  be  plenty  of  broiled  beefsteaks, 
underdone  roast  beef,  vegetables  of  all  sorts,  milk, 
abundance  of  fruit  both  raw  and  stewed,  but  nothing 
that  comes  from  the  frying  pan.  Cocoa  prepared 
homeopathically,  with  the  fatty  oil  extracted,  is  the 
best  drink  not  only  to  maintain,  but  to  improve,  the 
purity  of  tiie  blood. 

A  well-regulated  system  of  diet  has  great  power  in 
checking  the  progress  of  disease  and  in  aiding  the  pro- 
cess of  healthy  development ;  a  proper  knowledge  of 
dietetics  is  therefore  as  important  as  that  of  materia 
medica.  There  are  many  diseases  produced  by  im- 
proper diet,  alcoholism  among  the  rest.  Liebig  makes 
a  very  simj'le  classification  as  follows: 

1 .  The  nitrogcnized (-kmcuts  of  uutnthm, flesh-formers, 
in  which  he  comprises  vegetable  fibrin,  vegetable  al- 
bumin,  vegetable  casein,  flesh,  and  blood. 

2.  The  uon-nitrogenized,  or  elements  of  respiration , 
heat-givers:  fat,  starch,  gum,  cane-  and  grape-sugar, 
sugar  of  milk,  beer,  and  spirits. 

The  former  alone,  in  his  opinion,  are  inservient  to  the 
nutrition  of  organized  tissue ;  the  latter  are  burned  in 


RE  MF.  DYING   AND  STRENGTH  FN  INC, 


07 


respiration  and  to  furnish  heat.  A  work  pulih'shed  in 
Kngland  some  twenty  years  since,  and  undoiihtedly  re- 
printed in  this  country,  entitled  "  How  Not  to  He  Sick," 
enters  plainly  and  most  satisfactorily  into  the  subject  of 
diet,  and  is  worthy  of  study. 

Entire  Abstinence  from  all  Stimulants  and  Nar- 
cotics an  EssentiaU — Inastnuch   as   there   exists   in 
this  constitution  a  singular  sensitiveness  to  stimulants 
and  narcotics,  all  alcoholic   drinks,  tobacco  if  every 
form,  and  even  strong  tea  and  coffee  and  the  exces- 
sive use  of  drug  medicines  should  be  rigidly  and  un- 
compromisingly   avoided.      The    youth    should    learn 
his  lesson  early  through   a  vehicle  which    he  would 
undoubtedly  respect— a   physician:    how   his   mental 
constitution  will  not  allow  him  to  indulge  in  licjuor 
or  beer,  and  that  the  first  glass  may  so  prejudicially 
affect  his  nervous-mental  system  as  seriously  to  impair 
the  proper  development  ot  self-control  and  the  main- 
tenance of  it  through  life ;  <.hat  it  may,  and  undoubt- 
edly will,  open    the   sluice-gates   tr    all  .sorts  of  self- 
indulgence  which  sooner  or  later  may   terminate   in 
insanity,  intemperance,  or  other  mental  affection,  and 
always  in  failure,  ruin,  and  misery  ;  that  even  if  he  could 
indulge  in  moderation,  and  without  becoming  grossly 
inebriated  every  time  he  touched  it,  the  injury  to  his 
nervous  constitution  would  be  no  less  pernicious,  and 
although  his  freedom  from  die  grosser  features  of  dram- 
drinking  would  indicate  the  absence  of  the  inebriate 
strain  in  his  temperament,  it  might  not  demonstrate  for 
many  years,  and  perhaps  not  until  it  was  too  late  for  a 
cure,  other  organic  weaknesses  and  defects  that  would, 


H  »aia^i»;'^^9Mttr:kM'-SiA-ii;m 


68 


INFBRIHTY 


under  self-indulgence,  develop  into  epilepsy,  paralysis, 
and  other  forms  of  unmistakable  insanity.     His  only 
safety  lies  in  a  complete  alostinence  from  all  alcoholic 
and  malt  liquors,  tobacco,  opiates,  and  indeed  all  drugs, 
from  the  beginning.     By  the  law  of  his  organization, 
moderation  in  all  these  indulgences  which  influence  the 
nervous  brain  is  impossible.     If,  during  the  emi)loy- 
ments  of  later  life  which  involve  close  application  of 
the  mind,  this  liability  to  indulge  to  excess  is  mani- 
fested, it  must  be  emphatically  borne  in  mind  that  the 
most  commendable  mental  em[)loyment,  starting  as  it 
ordinarily  does  with  instinctive  likings  accompanied  by 
a  natural  adaptability,  and  with  the  stimulus  of  suc- 
cessful and  perhaps  lucrative  results  to  the  fore,  may  be 
blindly  carried  to  such  an  extent  as  to  become  a  hurt- 
ful self-indulgence  and  terminate  in  a  loss  of  mental 
health   and  its   concomitant,  self-control;   until  what 
began  as  a  virtuous  duty  has  through  unwise  persis- 
tency become  so  exaggerated  as  to  degenerate  into  a 
destructive  vice. 

Many  individuals  from  this  cause  have  broken  down 
and  failed  before  arriving  at  the  fruition  of  their  hopes, 
while  of  those  who  have  succeeded  in  reaching  the  sum- 
mit of  their  ambitions  the  greater  number  have  left  be- 
hind them  all  the  satisfaction  that  comes  from  living 
Their  judgment  is  continually  calling  upon  them  t 
desist,  to  forbear,  to  rest,  to  refrain  from  pushing  their 
likings  to  the  point  of  self-indulgence;  but  the  work 
they  liave  in  hand  has  gradually  and  covertly  metamor- 
phosed itself  from  a  healthful  sensation  into  a  morbid 
and  injurious  craving ;  from  an  instrument  and  agent  of 


() 


RFMf- DYING   /1ND   STRENGTHENING 


69 


healthful   development  of  the  faculties  and   exercise 
of  the  mind  into  a  tyrannous  taskmaster  demanding 
passive  obedience.     The  nerve-force  is  exhausted,  the 
self-control   in  this  indulgence,  as  it  is  in   more  vi- 
cious enjoyments,  is  lost,   the   health  is  broken,  and 
happiness  a  thing  of  tlie  past.     They  are,  practically 
speaking,  in  the  same  physical  state  of  health  as  the 
drunkard,  and  perhaps  in  a  large  majority  of  instances 
more  accountable  ;  for  the  latter  individual  may  have 
started  life  with  that  neurasthenic  condition  of  nerve 
which  the  former  have  sown  and  reaped  later  on.     To 
say  the  least,  they  have  been  self-indulgent  men  and 
have  undermined  their  health  and  happiness,  and,  like 
the  inebriate  in  drink,  must  start  afresh  to  build  up 
their  fallen  structure  and  do  those  things  which  they 
do  not  like  to  do  and  have  an  aversion  for. 

To  Correct  the  Absence  of  Ambition  in  Moral- 
Material  Directions —In  a  large  proportion  of  youths 
inheriting  the  neuro-psychopathic  constitution  there  is 
a  conspicuous  absence  of  any  pronounced  liking  or 
ambition  in  the  direction  of  any  special  line  of  intellec- 
tual labor  or  physical  pursuit  pointing  to  material  pros- 
perity or  independence.  There  is  a  manifest  aversion 
to  occupations  that  recpiire  strength,  exertion,  persis- 
tency, uniformity,  and  continuity.  They  incline  toward 
sedentary  employments,  possess  intellectual  intuitions, 
but  no  executive  force.  They  are  nervous,  imaginative, 
and  exhibit  no  interest  in  bodily  existence  outside  of 
petty  matters,  are  easily  discouraged,  and  are  self-con- 
scious to  a  painful  degree.  They  make  comparisons 
unfavorable  to  themselves,  are  acutely  susceptible  to 


70 


INBBRIRTY 


their  own  deficiencies,  and  shy,  awkward,  easily  excited 
and  disturbed.  If  there  is  one  thing  they  dishke  more 
than  another,  it  is  an  occupation  which  brings  them 
into  continued  communication  with  the  outside  world, 
into  momentary  contact  with  quick-witted,  sharp,  push- 
ing, energetic  men  of  commercial  instincts,  into  collision 
with  the  actualities  of  life.  They  are  placed  in  stores, 
and  are  failures ;  into  offices  where  money  and  its  de- 
pendencies are  the  chief  consideration,  and  are  failures  ; 
and,  indeed,  are  failures  all  through  life  ;  and  the  causes 
of  this  lie : 

1.  In  the  morbid  condition  of  the  constitutional  mental 
health  exhibited  in  wavering  and  perverted  nerve-sen- 
sations. 

2.  The  absence  of  healthy  sensational  likings  in  mate- 
rial existence  and  a  retarded  mental  development  follow- 
ing this  departure  from  a  necessary  law  of  improvable 
being. 

3.  ']'he  absence  of  all  individual  persistency  in  any  one 
direction  that  would  develop  rudimentary  liking  into  a 
successful  force  and  capacity,  and  in  consequence : 

4.  The  absence  of  that  great  lever  to  removal  of  moral 
impediments,  self -encouragement,  which  follows  only  from 
repeated  successes  in  the  petty  details  of  life ;  and 

5.  As  the  natural  accompaniment  to  continued 
mental  discouragements,  the  gradual  degeneration  of 
the  physical  health,  the  sapping  of  the  physical  forces  of 
the  body,  calling  into  activity  latent  constitutional 
strains  and  disorders,  causmg  the  nervous  system  to  be 
intensely  susceptible  to  prejudicial  influences  and  as- 
sociations, and  making  the  future  life  dependent  either 


REMEDYING  AND  STRENGTHENING  71 


upon  an  accidental  conjunction  of  circumstances,  or  of 
calculating  and  extraordinary  measures  for  altering  and 
remedying  preexisting  morbid  conditions  and  health- 
fully developing  the  latent  intellectual  constitution ;  and 
6.  The  loss  of  self-control,  opening  wide  the  avenues 
to  self-indulgence,  the  propensities  in  the  line  of  the 
animal  nature,  and  putting  the  finishing  touch  to  de- 
parting manhood. 

Among  all  civilized  races  and  during  all  periods  ot 
their  civilization  the  intellectual  likings  of  men  have 
furnished  the  motive  power  to  every  great  achievement, 
to  every  ennobling  ambition  and  pursuit,  to  commen- 
dable conduct  in  life,  success  in  some  form  or  other bemg 
the  ultimate  consideration  ;  and  so  common  is  it  to 
possess  this  quality  of  mind  in  a  marked  degree  that  its 
absence  may  be  set  down  as  a  departure  from  a  natural 
law  oi  the  human  organization. 

It  will  not  do  for  us  to  act  on  the  supposition  that 
there  are  no  natural  impulses  of  the  mind  in  any  other 
direction  than  that  of  animal  indulgence  unless  im- 
planted there  by  extraneous  measures,  but  rather  that 
the  corresponding  magnet  of  attraction  has  not  been 
presented  to  draw  out  strong  will  impulses  or  latent 
capacities,  or  that  pecuhar  organic  conditions  exist 
which  have  prevented  their  full  growth.     It  is  quite 
possible  that  in  every  human  being  there  is  at  least  one 
strong  talent  or  liking,  and,  given  the  opportunity  and 
the  requisite  training  and  association,  it  may  become  a 
prodigious  force  to  develop  all  the  forces  of  the  moral 
man  to  almost  superhuman  accomplishment. 

If  the  lack  of  any  persistent  liking,  desire,  or  per- 


72 


INEBRIETY 


sistent  impulse  in  tlie  line  of  a  social-mora^  purpose  in 
life  exhibits  itself,  and  there  are  evidences  of  morbid 
sensitiveness,  moral  cowardice,  physical  timidity,  defec- 
tive energy  and  persistence,  a  yielding  disposition,  a 
tendency  to  give  way  to  the  immaterial  trifles  of  daily 
existence,  take  steps  at  once  to  excite  and  stimulate  the 
mind  of  the  young  patient  by  familiar  conversations  on 
the  heroic  characters  of  the  past  and  present  age,  and 
on  every  instance  of  moral  heroism  that  crops  out  amid 
his  surroundings  ;  not  the  physical  prowess  of  the  soldier 
and  the  athlete,  which  is  only  of  value  when  it  accom- 
panies moral  audacity  and  a  moral  purpose  in  life,  but 
of  actions  which  necessitate  a  tension  of  the  stronger 
intellectual  forces  of  the  mind.  The  course  of  reading, 
study,  and  pleasures  should  be  shaped  so  as  to  include 
all  that  comes  within  the  sphere  of  moral  firmness  and 
moral  audacity.  His  manly  sentiments,  boldness, 
"  daring  to  do,"  and  particularly  his  readiness  and 
presence  of  mind,  should  be  developed  by  placing  him 
in  positions  which  will  demand  of  him  more  or  less  of 
these  qualities,  in  order  that  his  shyness  and  aversion 
to  use  his  faculties  in  public  may  be  gradually  crushed 
out.  This  should  be  effected  through  encouragement 
and  praise,  for  in  these  cases  commendation  is  better 
than  ridicule,  persuasion  stronger  than  compulsion,  in 
arousing  the  dormant  energy  and  ambition. 

His  disgust  and  contempt  of  every  phase  of  moral 
weakness  and  loss  of  self-control  should  be  aroused  by 
making  available  to  that  end  every  instance  of  such 
infirmity  displayed  by  his  colleagues  and  through  his 
associations.     The  weakness  exhibited  in  lying  to  avoid 


REMEDYING   /fND   STRENCTHENING 


73 


unpleasant  consequences  should  be  impressed  upon  him 
by  practical  illustrations.     He  should  be  encouraged 
to  make  manliness  his  principal  aim  in  life,  and  incited 
to  enthusiasm  in  the  acquisition  of  it  in  its  highest 
moral  sense ;  be  made  thoroughly  to  understand  that 
self-control  is  the  very  keystone  of  the  arch  of  all  the 
manly  qualities ;  that  manliness  itself,  in  its  full  signifi- 
cance, com})rehends  self-denial,  energy,  and  indomi- 
tableness  of  purpose,  the   "  do-or-die "  principle,  the 
carrying  out  of  a  moral  intention  once  declared  in  spite 
of  every  obstacle  that  mny  arise  to  divert  him  from  his 
purpose  ;  and  that  none  of  these  Miings  can  possibly  be 
accomplished  through  ill-considered  spurts,  yet  none  is 
impossible  in  time.     The  moment  that  his  moral  per- 
ceptions fully  recognize  the  difference  between  a  Martin 
Luther  and  an  athlete,  he  has  made  a  great  mental  ad- 
vancement. 

There  are  some  youths  of  this  kind  who  exhibit  ex- 
ternally an  unusual  frankness,  an  excessive  ingenu- 
ousness of  character,  accompanied  by  a  physf  al  au- 
dacity, impulsiveness,  and  recklessness  which  is  apt  to 
mislead  ;  for,  underlying  this  apparent  manliness,  there 
may  exist  moral coimnnce,  morbid  sensitiveness,  absence 
of  all  ambition,  changea!)ility,  a  lack  of  industry  and 
persistence,  self-indulgence,  and  especially  a  weak  will, 
all  of  which  render  them  as  liable  to  failure  in  life  as 
the  shy,  reserved,  and  less  ingenuous  youth. 

The  Training  of  the  Executive  Force  or  Moral 
Will  Power,— All  that  is  good  in  human  existence 
comes  from  forced  individual  efforts  under  the  moral 
perception  to  think  ri-ht  and  to  do  right.     It  is  partic- 


74 


INFBRIETY 


iilarly  the  case  with  this  temperament,  wlierein  the 
feehngs  and  impulses  often  prove  unfaithful  indicators 
of  the  true  character.  It  is  not  so  much  what  can  be 
accomplished  directly  by  successful  efforts  in  directing 
the  mind  into  wholesome  channels,  but  the  aggregate 
results  which  these  mental  gymnastic  exercises  produce 
in  strengthening  the  mind  to  a  point  of  resistance  to 
those  frequent  moral  impediments  which  interpose 
themselves  from  time  to  time  to  bar  advancement,  and 
conspicuously  those  twin  giants  of  despair,  chrotiic  dis- 
coumgcmeiit  and  mental  ill  Jiralth.  Hence  the  impor- 
tance of  training  the  mind  to  make  daily  efforts  of  all 
sorts  in  moral  directions  aga'ur^t  the  graiti  of  the  incli- 
nations, and  particularly  to  overcome  that  injurious 
dissatisfaction  of  the  mind  arising  from  the  immediate 
non-fruition  of  attempts  to  do  right.  The  patient  should 
be  made  to  realize  that  no  labor  of  any  value  produces 
its  complete  results  at  once,  but  that  the  longer  these 
results  are  delayed,  the  richer  the  harvest  of  well-doing. 
There  was  never  a  seed  of  this  kind  planted  that  did 
not,  sooner  or  later,  yield  returns  tenfold  its  cost.  There 
is  no  investment  that  can  be  made  so  productive  of 
generous  dividends. 

Doing  right  is  to  do  those  things  which  we  do  not 
want  to  do,  rebel  at,  and  finally  leave  undone  after  an 
expenditure  of  nerve-force  largely  in  excess  of  that  re- 
(juired  in  the  immediate  execution  of  them  ;  and  while 
the  nerve-energy  in  the  one  case  has  been  applied  to 
the  building  up  of  the  moral  character,  in  the  other  it 
has  weakened  the  basis  of  the  fabric  and  made  it  waver- 
ing.    Every  failure  in  carrying  out  petty  duties  is  a 


REMEDYING  AND  STRENGTHENING 


r5 


brick  misplaced.     If  the  mind  be  gloomy  and  ikprcsscd^ 
benc'l  it  at  once  into  active  and  heroic  channel- ;  read 
history  and  the  biographies  or  memoirs  of  men  who 
have  risen  beyond  these  constitutional  restraints  of  the 
mind.     Burton,  in  his  "Anatomy  of  Mclanr  holy,"  is 
more  adapted  to  the  present  actualities  of  life  than 
Thomas  ^  Kempis,  and  much  can  be  learned  from  him. 
When  the  mind  is  unnaturally  stimulated,  variable,  and 
diffuse,  concentrate  it  on  a  ^tudy  or  one  line  of  objects 
that  will  bring  the  observing  faculties  into  activity,  such 
as  plant  life  and  die  various  phenomena  of  external  na- 
ture,   li  effeminate  and ener  ited,hx\n^  it  to  bearon  mas- 
culine  pursuits  that  will  call  ui  on  the  stronger  forces  of 
the  patient's  mind,  and  exercise  the  organs  of  calcula- 
tion, weight,  size,  form,  order,  and  eventuality  in  the 
study  of  the  niceties  and  harmonies  of  nature.     When 
//  is  affected  by  sensual  fancies  and  imaginings,  tall  upon 
the  inborn  moral  power  of  resistance  to  disperse  the 
objectionable  impression,  the  impure  suggestion,  the  un- 
wholesome nervous  sensation,  and  get  rid  of  it  ciuickly 
before  it  is  taken  up  by  the  self-con^>ciousness  and  regis- 
tered on  the  nerve-fibres  of  the  brain  for  future  repro- 
duction. 

Exercise  or  work  in  the  open  air,  society  of  virtuous 
and  cultivated  women,  a  puzzle,  a  conundrum,  a  laugh 
—anything,  all  things,  to  get  the  mind  back  to  a  healthy 

standard. 

Action  !  action  !  action  !  Action  of  the  mind,  action 
of   the   body,   uniform,  persistent,  and   tiring,  is  the 

treatment. 

If  the  mind  shall  have  become  so  morbid  as  to  find 


76 


INEBRIETY 


no  satisfcK  tion  outside  of  continued  isolation  and  avoid- 
ance of  social-moral  restraints  and  duties,  wi  h  aversion 
for  intercourse  with  healthy,  refined  youth  of  both  sexes 
in  their  social  assemblies,  continued  efforts  are  neces- 
sary to  overcome  such  unwholesome  and  pernicious 
instincts  or  morbid  acquisitions.  The  whole  fabric  of 
utilitarian  morality  is  dependent  upon  association. 
Success  in  life  is  fatally  marred  at  the  beginning  of  the 
career  unless  every  oi)p()rtunity  of  mingling  with  one's 
kind  of  both  sexes  is  availed  of  to  cure  this  evil  ten- 
dency. There  must  be  a  daily  growth  of  healthy  social 
instincts,  by  mixing  in  society,  by  ignoring  the  diseased 
sense  of  personal  deficiencies,  by  doing  all  that  lies  in 
the  power  of  the  patient  to  forget  himself  for  a  time  by 
helping  others  to  forget  the  vivid  sense  of  their  genuine 
troubles  and  afflictions,  by  cultivating  an  ambition  to 
please  others,  and  by  showing  himself  pleased  with  them. 

If  constitutionaUy  im  lined  to  self -depreciation  and  to 
a  sense  of  personal  inferiority  and  deficiency  in  social 
talents,  the  constant  association  with  intelligent,  polite, 
and  considerate  men  and  women  of  the  world,  and 
persistent  study  of  the  requirements  of  .social  inter- 
course, is  the  only  cure  for  that  form  of  nervous  egoism, 
uncultivated  selfishness,  and  mauvaise  honte. 

The  assumption  of  responsibility  as  adviser  an  :1  pro- 
tector of  cultivated  women,  with  the  ability  to  assume 
such  an  office,  is  a  high  moral  agent  for  good.  The 
opportunities  to  do  this  in  a  youth's  life  are  ordinarily 
abundant,  Init  are  usually  shirked. 

Moral  Defection  in  Well-trained  Youths.- It  has 
ever  been  a  matter  of  astonishment  to  narents  who 


REMEDYING  AND  STRENGTHENING 


77 


have  reared  children  in  a  highly  moral  and  religious 
atmosphere,  and  have  subjected  them  to  the  strictest 
home  restraint  apart  from  vicious  associations,  that,  m 
spite  of  these  safeguards,  at  least  one  of  the  flock  turned 
out  no  better,  and  possibly  not  so  well,  as  the  offspring 
of  their  poorest  neighbcjrs,  whose  secular  and  religious 
education  and  training  were  alike  of  the  most  meagre 
character,  and  who  were  permitted  to  run  out  in  the 
byways  and  inhale   possible    contamination  at  every 
breath;  and  still  greater   is  the  wonder  when  one  of 
their  tenderly  nurturetl  sons,  who  "  kicked  the  traces  " 
in  his  early  youth,  and  finally  ran  away  from  the  pa- 
rental roof,  returns,  older  in  years,  but  with  a  success 
that  could  be  reached  only  through  years  of  self-denial, 
fortitude,  patience,  and  industry. 

It  may  be  a  relief  to  these  good  parents  and  guardians 
to  know  that  it  was  not  due  to  any  culpable  negligence 
or  remission  of  duty  on  their  part  that  some  of  their 
children  turned  out  so   diametrically  opposite  to  the 
pattern  to  which  it  was  intended  they  should  conform, 
but  simply  to  ignorance  of  a  physico-moral  law  which 
influences  cause  and  effect.     This  they  had  not  so  much 
refused  to  recognize  as  the  fact  that  the  constitutional 
temperaments  of  children,  even  of  the  same  parents, 
differ  largely,  and  the  education  and  training  suited  to 
one  temperament  might  be  very  prejudicial  to  another. 
The  organic  conditions  which  made  departure  from  a 
steady  life  easy  were  systematically  being  uacked  and 
stimulated  in  the  case  of  one  child  by  a  course  of  train- 
ing more  favorable  to  the  growth  of  the  weaker  and 
more  effeminate  qualities,  which  were  weakening  and 


78 


INHBRIETY 


ri 


prejudicial  and  dirctly  t^)posed  to  thv^  formation  of  that 
great  safeguard  of  life  built  up  of  manhnes!!,  self-depen- 
dence^  and  sclj  control^  so  imperatively  demanded  in  his 
case ;  while  with  another,  escape  from  liie  enervating 
influences  of  home  life,  the  being  thrown  on  their  own 
resources  at  an  adaptable  age,  and  the  accidental  con- 
junction of  other  favoring  circumstances,  developed 
strong,  heahhy,  intellectual  forces  which  antagonized 
a  disposition  to  a  self-indulgent  life  and  carried  him 
safely  onward  in  spite  of  pitfalls  and  dangerous  places 
to  material  success. 


IV 

THF  INHRRIATE'S  C  )NT1.  JUED  PROGRESS   IN 
BUHDING   UP  MORAL   MANHOr 


79 


lll.tlL'JJ.U^.l-ggB 


IV 


The  Inebriatk's  Continued  Progress  in  Build- 
ing UP  MoRAi-  Manhood 

The  IlyiHTtritical  Condition  of  Mind  with  Kcf^ard  to 
C)ur  I'Lllow-nu-n  very  DcstriRtive  to  Mental  Health 

The  Value  of  IJeing  Indulgent  to  the  Beliefs  and  Opin- 
ions of  Others 

Manly  In<lulgenee  for  the  Weaknesses  and  Infirniitics 
of  Others 

The  Value  of  Moral  Persistenee 

Adherenee  to  Virtues  in  Harmony  with  Our  Disposition 
and  Associations  not  Moral  Strength 

Encouragement  in  a  Life  oi  Self-denial 


80 


IV 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  CONTINUED  PROG- 
RESS IN  BUILDING  UP  MORAL  MAN- 
HOOD 


The  Hypercritical  Condition  of  Mind  with  Re- 
gard to  Our  Fellow-men  very  Destructive  to  Men- 
tal Health,— '1  "!><-'  hi\\)\l  of  (IwfUiiig  upon  the  weaker 
iiiul  meaner  qualities  and  vices  of  others  in  thought 
and  conversation  is  enervating  to  the  mental  and  hurt- 
ful to  the  moral  health,  and  the  sooner  it  is  laid  aside 
the  better.  The  weak  men  who  indulge  in  it  are  weaker 
than  the  women  who  do  so,  for  where  the  latter  have 
been  led  into  the  practice  by  reastai  of  the  restricted 
sphere  of  their  activities,  men  have  no  such  excuse. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  speak  of  the  good  traits  in 
our  associates  and  neighbors  necessitates  a  restraint 
upon  our  egoism,  and  the  desire  for  moral  precedence 
in  the  lives  of  others  is  provocative  of  intellectual  ex- 
pansion. It  is  gready  developing  to  engage  in  this 
latter  practice,  w^hich  especially  commends  itself  to  a 
woman  as  the  quality  in  a  man's  mind  which  she  is 

81 


82 


INEBRIETY 


less  able  to  emulate  than  any  other  manly  trait  he  may 
possess.  It  is  true  she  does  at  times  caustically  remark 
that  "  men  speitk  well  of  one  another  because  they  are 
afraid  of  one  another,"  but  she  does  not  honestly  believe 
this,  for  it  is  the  true  genius  of  manliness  in  the  habit 
which  excites  her  respect. 

The  tattler  of  the  male  sex  is  held  in  quiet  contempt 
even  by  the  tattler  of  the  female  sex.  who,  though  she 
may  encourage  him  in  his  unmanly  displays  of  small- 
ness,  meanness,  and  insignificance,  at  the  same  time 
rates  him  much  below  herself  in  strength  of  mind  and 
character. 

The  value  of  the  appreciative  quality  of  mind  with 
regard  to  others  depends  upon  the  man's  intelligence 
and  sagacity  in  discovering  admirable  traits  of  charac- 
ter not  apparent  to  the  ordinary  observer,  and  perhaps 
only  obscurely  guessed  at  by  the  possessors  themselves, 
and  not  upon  an  uncalculating  assumption  that  such 
virtues  exist,  or  for  self-interest.     Therefore  in  speak- 
ing of  others  it  is  well  to  maintain  reticence  on  the 
score  of  their  well-known  faults  and  vices  of  character, 
and  refer  to  their  virtues  and  choicer  traits.     Although 
this  will  prove  a  difficult  matter  at  first  from  insufficient 
cultivation,  it  will  finally  become  as  easy  and  fluent  as 
the  other,  and  he  who  penetrates  the  deepest  into  this 
undeveloped  mine  will  ultimately  be  esteemed  the  best 
talker.     In  the  generous  rivalry  which  would  spring  up 
to  outdo  one  another  in  this  accomplishment,  virtues 
and  capacities  now  undreamed  of  would  be  brought  to 
light  and  the  aggregate  results  become  incalculably 
beneficent.     The  smartest  man  in  society  would  be  he 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  CONTINUED  PROGRESS      83 


who  could  discover  the  greatest  number  of  beauties, 
and  the  dullest  and  stupidest  he  who  could  alone  find 
nothing  but  faults  and  blemishes. 

The  weak  and  faulty,  the  discouraged  and  despair- 
ing, would  be  stimulated  to  live  up  to  the  character 
given  them  by  others  when  they  learned  that  the  good 
they  were  but  dimly  aware  of  possessing  elicited  the 
praise  of  their  social  contemporaries,  while  the  bad 
they  were  conscious  of  doing  was  treated  with  silent 
contempt.  The  greatest  flattery  would  be  the  praise 
of  quaUties  and  capacities  which  the  man  knew  he  pos- 
sessed, but  with  which  he  had  never  been  pioperly 
credited.  It  would  not  only  make  him  feel  stronger 
and  better,  and  inspire  him  with  respect  for  the  intelli- 
gence and  admiration  for  the  generosity  of  the  man 
who  openly  avowed  them,  but  it  would  also  encourage 
him  to  give  a  guaranteed  force  tc  the  commendation 
by  making  it  still  further  deserved. 

We  have  got  so  into  the  fashion  of  seeing  strength  and 
capacity  in  successful  corrupt  men  that  we  fail  altogether 
to  note  the  greater  strength  ar:d  nobler  capacities  in 
unsuccessful  (taking  wealth  as  the  standard  of  success) 
good  men.  Yet  it  is  easier  and  more  immediately 
profitable  for  the  unprincipled  man  to  do  evil  than  for 
the  good  man  of  mediocrity  to  continue  to  do  well ; 
and  therefore,  the  demands  upon  the  latter's  strength 
of  resistance  being  greater,  he  is  the  stronger  and  the 
manher.  To  be  just,  to  be  generous,  in  our  estimate 
and  criticism  of  others,  is  a  very  high  grade  of  manli- 
ness and  possibly  the  scarcest  of  all  our  manly  qualities. 
To  give  full  and  complete  credit  to  others  in  public 


84 


INEBRIETY 


seems  like  hiding  our  own  light  under  a  bushel,  yet  by 
withholding  any  good  ',vord  with  respect  to  others  we 
may  be  sinning  against  'hem  cruelly,  and  may  carry,  by 
a  compromising  silence,  a  train  of  evil  consequences 
to  them  which  is  f.ure  to  rebound  in  evil  results  to  our- 
selves. The  excess  of  praise,  although  it  is  regarded 
as  man-worshiping,  is  stimulating  to  every  quality  of 
healthy  manhood. 

Ordinarily  the  worst  of  our  fellow-men  are  the  tran- 
sient and  emotional :  colorings  and  expressions,  exter- 
nally noticeable,  are  no  safe  indications  of  the  real  man 
within,  who  is  rarely  sounded  by  the  lighter  gages  of 
associated  life.     We  must  be  at  our  best  before  we  can 
get  at  his  best,  before  we  can  draw  out  that  moral 
worth  in  him  which  only  responds  truthfully  U)  tlmt 
which  is  genuinely  trustworthy  in  ourselves.     It  is  alone 
through  our  own  manhood  that  we  can  bring  his  into 
activity,  if  there  be  any  of  that  quahty  in  him  to  re- 
spond to  true  calls.     If  we  fail  to  do  this,  it  may  l>e 
through  some  lack  of  it  in  ourselves,  hidden  even  from 
our  own  eyes  through  unc<'>fiscious  egoism ;  and  we  may 
feel  pretty  certain  that  what  we  do  call  out  corresponds 
closely  to  that  exhibited  by  ourselves,  whether  it  be 
nol)le  or  whether  it  be  mean.     Herein  lies  the  influence 
of  every  man  or  woman,  either  for  good  or  mischief, 
in  their  relations  with  one  another. 

The  capacity  to  read  others  and  to  do  justice  to 
others  in  speaking  of  them  approaches  to  a  rare  genius ; 
and  as,  however  conscientiously  we  may  set  about  it, 
the  essay  is  carried  on  largely  by  a  comparative  anal- 
ysis of  qualities  which  we  know  to  be  within  ourselves, 
we  seldom  arrive  at  more  than  faint  impressions,  the 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  CONTINUED  PROGRESS      85 


silent  mannerisms,  leaving  out  the  real  character  al- 
together. The  study  of  the  real  man  in  others  must  be 
prefaced  by  the  study  of  the  real  man  in  ourselves,  and 
the  doing  so  will  develop  a  stronger  and  kinder  regard 
for  one  another,  outside  of  circumstantial  aspects, 
which  would  seem  to  affiliate  closely  to  that  tenderness 
of  manhood  characterized  by  the  great  Formulator  of 
our  religion  as  "  loving  one  another." 

The  Value  of  Being  Indulgent  to  the  Beliefs  and 
Opinions  of  Others»-It  is  rarely  that  we  get  at  the 
real  sense,  the  true  meaning,  of  a  person  who  gives  his 
opinions  and  behefs,  either  in  conversation  or  in  writing, 
if  they  are  apparently  antagonistic  to  those  we  hold, 
and  it  may  be  more  through  our  own  weaknesses  than 
the  fault  of  the  other  that  we  so  signally  fail  to  do  so. 
It  may  only  require  on  our  part  a  mental  position  of 
patief*^  ^^  kindly  allowance,  and  withdrawal  of  personal 
prejudK>;s  ff>r  a  while  readily  to  translate  his  mode  of 
working  up  tliought  and  his  manner  of  conveying  that 
thought  iMo  '>'ir  more  familiar  and  satisfactory  pro- 
cesses; and  it  ^  arnything  but  manly  to  indulge  in  irri- 
tability and  unf  easortkig  criticism  until  we  are  thoroughly 
satisfied  that  our  interpretation  meets  with  his  approval. 
When  so  authorized,  with  a  just  allowance  for  his  situ- 
ation in  'ife,  which  may  give  greater  or  less  freedom  of 
expression,  it  may  be  that  our  own  views  will  be  altered 
through  what  he  has  advanced.     Possibly  his  beliefs 
are  by  necessity  what  our  own  would  l>e  under  anal- 
ogous conditions,  or  they  are  sul)stantia!Iy  the  same 
under  a  different  dress.     Unifornu'ty  of  opinion  may 
be  more  general  than  we  think,  but  uniformity  of  ex- 
pression seems  im[)ossible. 


I 


86 


IN  n  BR  I  FT  Y 


Manly  Indulgence  for  the  Weaknesses  and  In- 
firmities of  Others^-It  is  through  the  moral  weak- 
nesses and  infirmities  of  others,  even  to  their  vices 
(excepting  that  unpardonable  sin  of  intense  greed  for 
accumulating  vast  fortunes  at  the  expense  of  others), 
that  our  manly  sympathies  receive  the  healthful  exer- 
cise they  require.     This  necessitates  on  our  part  a  re- 
linquishment of  self-flatteries,  prejudices,  and  egoism, 
and  merges  our  minds  into  a  trained  sense  of  the  suf- 
ferings of  odiers,  not  morbidly  dwelling  on  sufferings 
and  sins,  but  encouraging  a  healthful   fellow-feeling, 
which  prompts  a  rightful  help  to  them  and  is  at  the 
same  time  helpful  to  ourselves.     Usually,  however,  the 
weaknesses  and  infirmities  of  others  seem  to  excite  and 
draw  to  the  surface  our  manifold  weaknesses,  which, 
instead  of  making  us  more  companionable  and  indul- 
gent, are  apt  to  arouse  a  spirit  of  contradiction.     We 
are  thus  made  more  hypercritical,  severe,  and  domineer- 
ing than  usual,  and  thereby  aggravate  rather  than  relieve 

the  evil. 

This  can  be  remedied  only  by  disciplining  our  self- 
control  and  trairdng  our  sympathetic  impulses  to  that 
degree  of  strength  which  is  l)eyond  the  weakness 
drawn  out  of  us ;  in  fact,  throwing  aside  our  personal 
egoism,  self-flatteries,  and  prejudices.  Every  man  and 
woman  with  these  healtlifully  cultivated  susceptibilities 
to  the  sufferings  of  others,  which  come  from  intimate 
connection  with  them  in  a  proper  and  indulgent  state 
of  mind,  is  more  than  a  missionary,  more  than  a  skilled 
physician.  Under  the  moral  and  bodily  miseries  of 
life  they  are  the  medicines  that  silently  but  surely  work 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  CONTINUED  PROGRESS     87 


to  alter  the  mental  conditions  which  make  sin  and 
suffering  possible. 

We  may  exhibit  stronger  and  more  convincing  evi- 
dences of  sympathy  and  benevolence  in  giving  our  time 
rather  than  our  money  to  alleviate  all  that  needs  allevi- 
ation in  the  lot  of  other  men  and  women,  for  whom  we 
are  called  upon  by  the  spirit  of  manhood  within  us  to 
do  all  that  lies  in  our  power.     Unfortunately,  however, 
we  are  too  apt  to  give  that  which  costs  the  least  self- 
denial,  without  much  regard  to  the  necessities  or  the 
well-being  of  the  individual  recjuiring  our  assistance. 
That  which  costs  the  greatest  inconvenience  to  give 
is  not  always  money,  and  for  that  reason  the  bestowal 
of  it  may  be  the  best  suited  to   enable   a  person  to 
help  himself.     It  takes  very  little  of  a  man's  money 
and  a  great  deal  of  the  man  himself  to  do  the  best  he 
can  for  another,  but  that  form  of  assistance  which  is 
in  harmony  with  the  man's  disposition  and  costs  no 
effort  is  the  one  ordinarily  bestowed.     The  unfortunate 
and  unsuccessful,  the  poor  and  miserable,  the  cruelly 
afflicted  and  innocent  sufferers,  and  even  the  tempted 
and  fallen  ones  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  suffer  for 
a  greater  or  less  time  in  the  world,  not  as  an  evidence 
that  they,  any  more  than  the  fortunate  ones  in  life,  have 
committed  greater  infractions  on  moral  laws,  and  are 
receiving  the  results  of  their  misconduct,  but  that  their 
sufferings  may  work  out  for  them  a  greater  breadth  of 
manhood  than,  with  their  organization,  would  otherwise 
be  possil)le.     The  more  'licit  misery  is  responded  to  by 
our  intelligent  aid  and  sympathy,  rather  than  our  con- 
tempt and  harsh  criticism,  the  more  we  assist  in  accom- 


plishing  the  end  in  view  at  the  least  possible  expense 
of  human  suffering,  that  of  carrying  out  the  line  of  de- 
veloi)ment  evidently  intended  by  the  great  spiritual 
Source  from  whom  all  that  is  valuable  in  us  first  ema- 
nated. 

The  Value  of  Moral  Persistence,- -It  would  seem 
as  if  the  quahty  of  manly  persistence,  in  order  to  pro- 
duce results  of  i)ermanent  value  to  the  man  and  to 
mankind,  must  be  educated  and  trained  in  a  high  moral 
direction  and  not  l)e  made  subservient  to  selfish  per- 
sonal interests.  The  men  who  arrive  at  material  suc- 
cess by  this  force  of  persistence  and  determination  to 
achieve  certain  ol)jects  in  life  are  rarely  men  who 
began  their  careers  with  a  resolve  to  become  rich  with- 
out scruple  at  whatever  cost.  At  first  their  ambition 
was  of  a  more  heroic  type,  and  may  not  ha\'e  altered 
until  the  result  of  this  ambition  was  with::,  their  reach. 
This  once  obtained,  bringing,  as  it  ordinarily  does, 
wealth  in  suflficient  abundance  to  satisfy  wholesome 
wants,  these  successful  men  in  a  double  sense  are  rarely 
able  to  divorce  tlie  two  in  their  after  conduct  of  Hfe. 
The  altruistic  motive  lias,  however,  been  adulterated 
by  the  egoistic  tendency  through  motives  of  calculating 
expediency,  and  where  it  commenced  with  the  unselfish 
query,  What  good  will  it  do?  it  ordinarily  ends  with  the 
more  fixed  politic  consideration,  How  much  will  it  pay? 
In  persistence  there  is  always  strength-,  not  necessa- 
rily manly  strength,  for  it  may  be  persistence  in  evil; 
but  even  though  it  l)e  not  manly,  but  brute  strength,  it 
is  certainly  of  more  value  than  the  weakness  of  waver- 
ing, which  is  a  continued  waste  of  nervous  manhood 


THE  INEBRIATE'S  CONTINUED  PROGRESS      89 


all  through.  Persistence,  if  it  be  at  all  logical  and 
reasoning,  may  be  and  often  is  utilized  by  its  subsequent 
conversion  into  good. 

The  genuinely  wicked  persistence  in  man  for  a  gen- 
uinely wicked  purpose  is  fortunately  of  sufficient  rarity 
to  shock  us  when  it  is  openly  manifested  ;  but  the  great 
majority  of  individuals  whom  we  regard  as  persistently 
wicked  may  be  nothing  more  than  persistently  self- 
indulgent  and  mentally  diseased.  No  man  is  strong  in 
manly  persistence  who  does  not  finish  his  stage  of  life 
in  this  body  at  a  point  which  reaches  its  maximum  of 
moral  persistence.  There  is  nothing  so  weak  and 
offensive  as  moral  waverings,  nothing  so  strong  nnd 
beautiful  as  moral  persistence,  the  building  up  of  man- 
hood on  a  solid,  impregnable  rock  of  stern,  irrevocable 
resolves,  which,  though  it  may  know  defeats,  has  never 
known  unconditional  surrender  of  any  portion  of  the 
ground  it  has  gone  over. 

It  is  oftentimes  the  case,  lu.wevcr,  that  the  persistently 
successful  man  in  business  or  in  religion  is  greatly  in- 
clined to  self-laudation,  and  indulges  this  weakness  to 
an  extent  offensive  to  others  who  are  honesdy  obliged 
to  acknowledge  that  they  have  achieved  no  very  great 
success  in  either,  but,  on  the  contrary,  may  be  set  down 
as  failures  in  both.  The  generator  of  moneyed  wealth 
and  the  successful  genius  of  religion  each  becomes  a 
law  unto  himself  in  his  self-conscious  appreciation.  If 
it  were  only  true  that  the  one  had  built  up  a  fortune 
and  the  other  goodness  by  lives  of  painful  self-denial  and 
self-renunciation,  of  enduring  faith  and  untiring  per- 
sistence, in  lines  tliat  were  solidly  against  the  grain  of 


w 

if* 


their  inclinations,  then  it  would  seem  as  if  they  deserved 
to  have  a  just  and  favorable  opinion  of  their  merits  and 
the  right  to  call  attention  to  their  well-earned  deserts ; 
but,  unfortunately  for  themselves,  they  do  not  in  the 
greater  number  of  cases  tell  the  truth.     Without  being 
fully  conscious  of  it  themselves,  they  may  have  been 
largely  the  creatures  of  favoring  circumstances,  which, 
finding  them  with  inherent  lines  of  action  in  harmony 
with  success,  carried  them  through  almost  in  spite  of 
themselves.     Instead  of  using  any  very  great  and  ex- 
hausting labor  involving  self-denial,  it  may  be  that  they 
were  simply  indulging  themselves  in  habits  of  mind  and 
body  the  most  congenial  and  agreeable  to  their  natural 
instincts  and  sensations ;  and  it  is  refreshing,  therefore, 
to  hear  occasionally  of  a  successful  wealthy  man  who  in- 
genuously acknowledges  that  hissuccesswas  awonderto 
himself— that  his  life,  instead  of  being  a  painful  one  of 
deprivations  and  unpleasant  exhaustive  demands  upon 
his  mind,  was  on  the  whole  exciting  and  pleasurable,  and 
a  departure  from  such  employment  into  uncongenial 
directions  would  have  indeed  been  misery  ;  that  instead 
of  being  one  long-continued,  determined  effort  at  over- 
coming difficulties  and  knocking  down  the  traditionary 
stone  walls  and  barriers  to  success,  it  was  nothing  more 
than  passive  obedience  to  an  harmonious  life  of  daily 
thought  and  action,  made  the  easier  by  the  absence  of 
conflicting  and  antagonistic  desires  and  tendencies. 

Adherence  to  Virtues  in  Harmony  with  Our  Dis- 
position and  Associations  not  Moral  Strength.-  If 
there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  tliat  a  man  hates 
to  confess,  it  is  that  he  cannot  drink  without  becoming 


THE  INEBRIATE'S   CONTINUED   PROGRESS      1)1 


intoxicated ;  yet  it  is  much  more  manly  to  say  this 
than  the  reverse,  that  he  can  drink  witliout  getting 
drunk.  It  shows  that  he  possesses  tlie  excitable  ner- 
vous-mental temperament  of  the  intellectual  man  and 
that  his  higher  manly  faculties  are  largely  in  excess  of 
his  lower  animal  nature.  He  who  says  that  he  must 
drink  or  life  is  no  object  to  him  is  not  a  healthfully 
developed  man.  His  body  may  be  in  apparently  good 
condition,  his  muscles  hard  and  strong,  but  his  mind 
has  either  never  been  properly  disciplined  in  early  youth 
or  is  going  through  degenerative  changes  from  the 
presence  of  some  insidious  disease.  He  must  either 
go  voluntarily  and  at  once  into  mental  traiiu'ng  and 
treatment,  or  be  hurled  into  it  later,  with  suffering  and 
misery,  by  the  inexorable  working  of  the  moral  law, 
which,  before  turning  hiiu  out  a  complete  man,  will 
first  have  ground  him  up  into  exceeding  small  pieces. 
It  is  not  only  unmanly,  but  mean-spirited,  for  the 
intemperate  man  to  declare  that,  although  he  is  weak 
on  the  one  point  of  getting  drunk,  he  is  especially  strong 
on  other  temptations ;  that,  although  he  gives  way  to 
inebriety,  he  does  not  do  so  in  odier  vices,  such  as 
gambling,  lying,  stealing,  taking  undue  advantage  of 
another  in  a  bargain,  scandal-mongering,  bearing  false 
witness,  adultery,  and  the  like.  He  deceives  himself 
and  attempts  to  deceive  others  when  he  says  so,  for  he 
knows  that  he  does  not  exercise  any  strong  force  of 
moral  resistance  to  these,  and  that  the  reason  he  does 
not  yield  to  them  is  because  he  has  no  stror  g  tendencies 
or  inclinations  in  such  directions.  If  they  possessed 
one  half  the  power  over  him  that  drink  does,  he  would 


:     it 
5      I 


02 


INEBRIETY 


yield  to  every  one  of  them.  There  is  no  manh'ness  in 
adhering  to  virtues  which  are  in  harmony  with  the  dis- 
position— no  moral  advancement  whatever ;  for  it  might 
be  harder  to  gamble  than  not  to  gamble,  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  another  than  not  to  do  so,  to  commit 
adultery  than  to  subdue  the  prudent  fear  of  conse- 
quences, to  steal  than  not  to  steal. 

77/<"  /ntt/i  is  that  /ir  has  exhihiteJ  i^rratcr  moral 
strnigth  in  Jii^htifii^  a^ij[ai//st  his  <v/r  i^nat  temptation, 
ihinky  than  in  any  other  direction,  and  it  is  in  this  one 
direction  that  his  restoration  to  the  full  stature  of  man  is 
to  come. 

The  temperance  zealot,  lacking  the  appetite  or  desire 
for  li(|Uor,  may  be  much  less  the  man,  as  far  as  drink 
goes,  than  the  inebriate  who  resists  his  craving  for  drink 
five  times  out  of  ten  ;  and  so  it  is  widi  every  virtue  in 
the  calendar.  We  are  only  strengthened,  developed, 
and  made  rightful  claimants  and  possessors  of  the  title 
and  digtu'ty  of  manhood  by  our  successful  fightings 
with  every  form  of  weakness. 

A  large  number  of  men  and  women  go  through  life 
with  the  credit  of  being  manly  men  and  moral  women, 
who  have  never  had  a  temptation  sufficiently  strong  and 
potent  for  a  kitten  not  to  resist  on  the  score  of  impro- 
priety, and  who  yet  fail  to  resist  even  these. 

Encouragement  in  a  Life  of  Self-deniaL— T >et  the 
newly  resolved  man  bear  in  mind  that  in  living  his  life 
of  daily  and  hourly  resistance  to  his  smaller  a}>|)etites, 
foibles,  and  petty  indulgences,  he  will  meet  with  many 
difficulties,  and  that,  instead  of  getting  easier  from  day 
to  day,  life  will  become  harder,  with  all  sorts  of  appa- 


THE  INEBluAiE'S   CON!  SUED  PROGRES        O;. 


rently  riew  mptations  cropping  out  to  block  his  path- 
way to  (111. 

He  h  perhaps  frecpicnily  u.jiessedin  tlie  past  this 
tendency  of  his  natun  lo  ^pos'  '  's  will  and  gooc/ 
res(  ves,  and  it  has  alvvay:,  .  >tumbling-block 

to  his  ccatiniuim  c  in  the  right  pall  As  he  experiences 
day  after  day  ihis  ming  antagoin"sm,  and  beholds  a 
long  vista  of  ever  ^^i owing  difficulties  before  him,  he 
becomes  discouraged  at  the  api)arent  endlessness,  hope- 
lessness, and  unsatisfactoriness  of  his  endeavors  to  ilo 
right,  and  succumbs  to  what  he  f^onsiders  the  inevitable. 
He  attributes  his  failure  to  hi  stiny  and  to  the  devil 
being  too  much  for  him,  ignorant  that  this  seeming 
opposition  to  his  moral  recovery  is  nothin  more  than 
the  operation  of  a  moral  law  of  the  divine  economy  in 
one  of  its  most  beautiful  workings,  by  which  his  will 
I)ovver  and  force  of  resistance  to  evil  are  l)eing  educated 
and  trained  in  the  same  manner  as  the  fond  mother 
trains  her  infant  child  to  walk,  step  by  step.  As  the 
strength  increases,  so  do  the  trials  or  temptings  increase, 
making  further  demands  upon  that  growing  strength 
until  it  reaches  its  fullest  development.  Instead,  there- 
fore, of  discouragement  and  despair,  the  mind  of  the 
struggling  man  should  feel  insi)ired  with  increasing 
hopefulness  and  continually  renewing  trust  and  thank- 
fulness. 


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MORAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  VARIOUS 
TYPES  OF  THE  INEBRIATE 


95 


Moral  Characteristics  and   Various  Types  of 

THE   Inebriate 

The  Inebriate  in  His  Moral  Characteristics 

The  Brutal  (.'rinn'nal  Inebriate  of  Our  Cities 

The  Nervous  Animal  Type  of  Inebriate 

The  Intellectual  Type  of  Inebriate 

The  Domestic  and  Religious  Type  of  Inebriate 

The  IJrutal  Criminal  Inebriate  in  Ills  Connection  with 

Jails  and  Penitentiaries 
The  Spiritual  Kflects  of  Drunkenness 

Diagram 


9G 


ES    OF 


ith 


MORAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  VARI- 
OUS TYPES  OF  THE  INEBRIATE 

The  Inebriate  in  his  Moral  Characteris^'cs.— It 

may  seem  odd  to  numy  jjcrsons  to  speak  of  the  differ- 
ence in  the  moral  status  of  inebriates.     With  tliese  a 
drunkard  is  nothing  but  a  drunkard  and  tliere  is  no 
good  in  him.     But  the  moral  habits  and  cliaracteristics 
of  the  individual,  outside  of  drink,  vary  in  accordance 
with  his  constitutional  tendencies  and  tlie  chara(-ter  of 
his  previous  education,  training,  and  situation  in  life. 
Until  the  moment  of  intoxication  he  may  l)e  either  a 
weak  good  man  or  a  thorouglily  vicious  one.     Subse- 
quently, when  he  emerges  from  it,  he  returns  to  what 
he  was  previous  to  his  debauch,  but  always  with  a  de- 
clension in  point  of  resistance  not  only  to  drink,  but 
to  every  vice  wln'ch  his  surroundings  and  distempered 
mind  incline  him  to.     Fortunate  is  the  man  who  can 
then  return  to  a  nu'ral-inteUectual  environment;  not  so 
much  for  what  it  ^oill  do  to  cure  his  intemperance,  luit 
li'hat  it  docs  accomplish  in  preserving;  him  from  the  icorst 

07 


i 

IT 

A 


98 


INEBRIETY 


feature  of  if,  the  acquisition  of  vices,  with  the  ultimate 
possibilities  of  crime. 

The  Brutal  Criminal  Inebriate  of  Our  Cities,— In 

the  foreground  we  have  the  blackguard  drunkard  of 
our  streets,  big  of  limb,  broad  of  chest,  low  of  brow, 
and  black  of  visage  ;  born  of  the  gutters ;  the  braggart 
and  bully  of  his  less  offensive  neighbors,  evil  triumph 
in  his  eyes ;  with  strong  assumption  of  physical  power, 
but  cowardly  by  instinct ;  thief  and  murderer  by  inher- 
ent qualities,  and  only  needing  an  accident  to  make 
either  or  both ;  at  times  politic  with  the  lowest  form  of 
animal  cunning ;  the  woman-bruiser  by  nature  and  nur- 
ture ;  his  language  as  polluted  as  his  mind,  which  rev- 
erences nothing  but  the  brute  force  which  overcomes 
him ;  always  the  concentrated  living  spawn  of  the  ac- 
cumulating growth  of  generations  of  depravity.  The 
accidents  of  life  sometimes  make  him  the  successful 
politician  and  the  petty  magistrate  or  alderman  of  our 
cosmopolitan  cities,  where  he  carries  on  his  debauchery 
with  immunity  from  the  laws  which  he  himseH  dispenses 
in  unjust,  arbitrary,  and  cruel  decisions  and  sentences 
against  his  less  fortunate  contemporaries  in  vice. 

The  Nervous  Animal  Type  of  Inebriate*— In  an- 
other class  of  inebriates  we  recognize  the  spoiled  boy 
that  is  born  of  those  social  upheavals  in  which  men 
without  education,  excepting  that  which  business  life 
develops,  become  suddenly  well-to-do  and  are  inspired 
with  an  ambition  to  elevate  their  sons  into  a  more  re- 
fined and  cultivated  social  position  than  they  them- 
selves can  hope  to  occupy. 

With  an  active  mind  born  of  the  parent  who  has  per- 


CHARACTERISTICS  AND   TYPES 


09 


haps  enriched  himself  without  much  scrupulous  regard 
'for  the  rights  of  others,  with  inherent  tendencies  in  the 
direction  of  animal  indulgences,  an  ill-regulated  mind, 
ample  means,  and  favoring  environment,  he  very  early 
absorbs  the  genius  of  the  street  more  readily  than  that 
of  the  intellectual  schools  of  life. 

His  later  education  is  of  billiard  halls,  concert  saloons, 
dance  houses,  gambling  dens,  and  brothels,  his  conver- 
sation is  altogether  of  these,  and  nothing  in  life  is  worth 
the  living  unless  spent  "as  a  tale  duit  is  told,"  amid 
pleasures  which  apjjeal  directly  to  the  largely  developed 
animal  side  of  his  brain.  Although  not  devoid  of  a 
thin  veneering  of  refinement  and  polish,  it  is  not  unlike 
that  attributed  to  the  Russian :  "  Scratch  him  and  the 
Tartar  appears."  He  is  an  imperfect  develoi)ment, 
imperfect  at  birth  and  made  so  by  the  character  of  his 
after  training  and  surroundings.  Spurreil  on  by  the 
necessity  which  impelled  his  father,  he  might  not  have 
differed  greatly  from  him  in  the  character  of  his  success. 

The  Intellectual  Type  of  Inebriate*— In  the  third 
marked  type  of  intemperate  men  we  find  the  educated 
man  of  refined  and  intellectual  instincts  and  habits,  who 
obtains  no  gratification  from  the  pastimes  of  the  brutish 
or  ignorant,  does  not  indulge  in  profanity,  card-playing, 
gambling,  etc.,  because  the  bent  of  his  mind  from  the 
beginning,  predetermined  by  the  organic  superiority  of 
the  intellectual  qualities  over  the  physical,  possibly 
through  a  long  line  of  cultured  progenitors,  is  not  in 
the  direction  of  such  enjoyments,  and  his  surroundings 
have  not  inspired  him  with  a  habit  of  mind  that  can 
obtain  even  surcease  of  suffering  from  such  practices. 


ii 


it: 


100 


INERRir.TY 


fl 


If 


•!:if  » 


He  has  no  great  vices  outside  of  his  indulgence  in 
drink,  because  of  the  weakness  of  his  desires,  and  he 
exercises  no  moral  strength  in  resisting  these,  although 
he  is  apt  to  alTect  a  reputation  for  his  exemi)tion  from 
the  common  vices  of  ordinary  drinking  men. 

In  his  alcoholic  inebriation  he  indulges  in  the  intel- 
lectual form  of  pleasure  rather  than  the  animal,  and 
often  feels  more  moral  when  drunk  than  when  sober. 
He  is  known  frequently  during  his  drinking-bouts  to 
have  been  intellectually  at  his  ])est,  up  to  the  time  that 
his  excessively  stimulated  brain  gave  way,  by  increasing 
intoxication,  to  the  impossibility  of  putting  his  thoughts 
into  an  intelligible  and  coherent  shape.  At  such  times, 
if  he  happens  to  be  of  a  classical  or  moral  bent  of 
mind,  he  will  express  himself  with  a  purity  and  correct- 
ness that  almost  equal  a  Cicero,  a  Marcus  Aurelius,  or 
a  Tacitus ;  if  he  is  idealistic  and  sentimental,  in  poetry 
that  makes  Homer,  Dante,  or  Dryden  seem  closer  to 
us  than  ever  before ;  if  humorous  and  witty,  the  brilliant 
sallies  and  bonsmots  which  his  highly  stimulated  ima- 
gination conjures  up  transport  us  into  an  atmosi)here 
breathing  of  a  Sheridan  or  a  Curran ;  and  if  patriotic, 
the  fire  and  vehemence  of  dead  orators  and  eloquent 
statesmen  become  renewed  and  living  under  the  stimu- 
lated forces  of  the  intoxicated  brain  of  the  nervous  m- 
tellectual  man. 

This  type,  as  well  as  the  succeeding  one,  Is  the  pro- 
duct of  hereditary  disease. 

The  Domestic  and  Religfious  Type  of  Inetriate, 

— Then,  again,  we  have  the  quiet,  domestic  youth,  who 
has  been  brought  up  among  virtuous  women,  who  loves 


r 


CH.-iRACrr.RlSTICS   ,^NI)    TYPl'S 


101 


reading  and  the  refined  i)leasiires  (-f  home  life.  lie  is 
reserved,  modest,  and  cleanly  in  his  habits,  has  little  if 
any  ambition,  but  has  the  character  of  mind  and  nervous 
organization  which  would  make  life  sweet  to  him  as  a 
village  cure  or  a  country  parson,  where  his  small  ego- 
ism would  receive  its  necessary  aliment  through  the 
sense  of  being  useful  to  his  fellow-men  in  a  quiet,  non- 
exciting  field  of  labor  rather  than  in  a  world  of  com- 
petitive ambitions,  struggles,  and  cares.  He  has  an 
appreciative  sense  of  honor  and  probity,  qualities  which 
he  has  inherited  along  with  his  liability  to  indulge  in 
stimukition.  To  him  i)eriodical  attacks  of  intoxicative 
mania  seem  to  come  as  a  resultant  of  his  (juiet,  non- 
combative  existence,  his  soft  and  yielding  nature,  the 
disturbing  influences  of  uncongenial  living,  and  as  a 
corrective  medicine  for  his  mental  and  physical  weak- 
ness.    He  is  a  congenital  neurotic. 

The  Brutal  Criminal  Inebriate  in  His  Connection 
with  Jails  and  Penitentiaries,— These  are  the  tyi)es 
that  stand  out  more  boldly  than  others,  which  are 
simply  modifications  of  the  foregoing  specimens.  With 
the  first  class  referred  to,  where  the  brutal  institicts  are 
encouraged  by  street  training  and  education  and  are 
accompanied  by  a  love  for  and  faith  in  depravity  as  a 
material  basis  of  human  existence,  it  would  seem  ns  if 
nothing  short  of  being  made  all  over  again  would  be 
of  any  benefit  in  converting  these  into  decent  members 
of  society.  What  we  have  to  do  in  their  case  is  not 
the  reformation  and  restoration  of  men  who  have  at 
one  time  led  respectable  and  socially  correct  lives,  but 
the  working  up  of  the  polluted  raw  material  into  a 


102 


iNnnRiiriY 


sliape  rc.scnil)lin^^  humanity,  with  some  sense  of  iitihta- 
rian  morahty.  They  require  new  niinils  and  new  bodies 
to  begin  witli,  before  the  ordinary  processes  of  secular 
and  moral  education  can  he  made  available.  The  dis- 
cipline and  teachings  of  the  church  cannot  be  made 
effective  through  her  customary  methods,  for  the  brains 
of  these  defective  specimens  of  humanity  are  so  struc- 
turally disorganized,  through  many  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  ignorance,  degradation,  and  wrong-doing,  that 
e\en  the  sensations  of  j)leasure  or  pain  are  in  them  as 
(juiescent  as  in  a  rln'noceros  and  are  excited  only  through 
the  stomach.  There  is  nothing  for  leligion  to  take  hold 
of,  and  it  is  only  by  remedying  the  morbid  organic 
conditions  within  their  brains  that  they  can  be  reached 
through  the  perceptive  faculty.  There  is  a  constitu- 
tional restraint  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  and  a  mental 
hygienic  discii)line  and  training  is  required  to  do  away 
with  this  and  allow  of  a  partial  development  at  any 
rate. 

As  this  would  have  to  be  done  through  compulsion 
and  by  the  state,  the  jails  and  workhouses  might  be 
diverted  from  their  present  position  as  ini(|uitous, 
legalized  schools  of  vice  and  crime  into  a  useful  pur- 
l)ose,  the  conversion  of  the  bad  stock  of  animal  men 
into  human  men.  But  this  will  never  be  done  until  the 
ridiculous  fallacy  that  criminality  or  viciousness  is  a 
moral  infraction,  a  voluntary  transgression  rather  than 
a  mental  deformity,  is  laid  aside,  along  with  the  other 
old  moral  lumber  of  past  civilizations.  It  is  no  new 
theory  to  believe  that  all  wickedness  and  weaknesses 
arise  from  organic  perversion  of  the  brain,  to  begin 


' 


CH.iR.'H:iiiR!sin:s  ^nd  typhs 


103 


' 


with,  and  from  this  bdng  continually  stimulated  ami  en- 
couraged by  a  wrong  eilucation  and  training  all  through 
life;  but  we  have  also  convincing  proofs  that  these  con- 
stitutional tendencies  toward  evil  have  been  subverted, 
and  the  innate  degeneracy  corrected,  from  the  fact  that 
a  large  number  of  our  morally  healthy  citizens  of  to-day 
started  life  with  everything  against  them  in  this  respect 
and  undoubtedly  owe  their  conversion  to  a  rightful  and 
proper  training. 

The  economic  principle  involved  in  Un'ning  our 
l)ris()ns  and  jails  into  schools  of  mental  hygiene  for  the 
building  up  of  moral  manhood  on  a  stern  and  rigid 
mental  discipline,  however  appreciable,  would  un- 
doubtedly call  out  the  usual  protests  of  the  moral 
school  of  gadgrinds,  who  would  see  nothing  in  it  but 
awards  and  encouragements  of  crime  where  there  should 
be  nothing  but  i)unishmcnt;  who,  in  the  same  spirit 
that  burned  Protestant  reformers  as  a  prevention  to  the 
further  spread  of  the  crime  of  apostasy,  would  deal  out 
blows  rath;"'  tlian  specifics.  But  there  is  little  fear  that 
this  sort  of  discipline  would  ever  be  regarded  as  a  plea- 
sure by  the  prisoner,  or  that  persons  would  commit 
crime  in  order  to  avail  themselves  of  the  prison  educa- 
tion. No  one  will  ever  go  to  jail  to  accomplish  his 
healthful  education  in  life.  .Schools  and  hygiene  are 
not  popular  with  criminals ;  they  have  too  decided  a 
l)reference  for  the  old  ways. 

The  entire  economy  of  prison  organization  is  worked 
on  the  principle  of  fear  as  a  ruling  motive  in  conduct, 
and  the  sound  of  the  gong  carries  with  it  the  inslant 
obedience  of  every  inmate.     Its  rules  are  as  immutable 


I 


h 


104 


iNnnRii-TY 


as  the  laws  of  tlic  Mcdcs  and  Persians  are  said  lo  have 
been.     In  no  otiier  way  can  snch  material  he  handled 
with  safety,  for  kindness  and   indul^^ence  are  largely 
thrown  away  on  these  undisciplined  men ;  but  if  prison 
life  fails  to  accomi)lish   any  good  bi't  that  of  ready 
obedience  to  discipline,  harsh,  cruel,  and  oppressive  as 
it  is,  and  as,  under  any  change  of  oeliefs,  it  will  always 
remain,  it  performs  that  which  is  of  appreciable  value 
to  them  and  to  the  state.      Unfortunately,  however,  the 
worlh  of  this  to  the  prisoner  is  more  than  counterbal- 
anced by  the  |)oisonous  influences  unceasingly  at  work, 
through  the  admixture  of  perverted  minds  in  various 
stages   of  cunning,  evil   ingenuity,  and   wrong-doing. 
The  contagious  examj-Ie  through  this  compulsory  as- 
sociation is  the  immoral  education  the  i)risoner  is  now 
receiving,  and  tlusalwaj-s  affords  the  stimulus  to  make 
weak  men  more  vicious  and  criminal  and  stronger  in 
evil  contiiuially,  while  the  hardened  criminal,  through 
the  imiM-ovemcnt  in  his  physical,  allhough  not  in  lu's 
mental  and  moral,  health,  is  beconu'ng  more  dangerous 
to  the  future  safety  and  security  of  society  and  con- 
tinually depreciating  in  i)ossible  value  as  an  econonu'c 
fa(-tor  in  civilization. 

The  value  of  such  a  system  of  correction  to  sociefv, 
if  it  could  be  successfully  put  into  operation,  would 
be  almost  incalculable.  It  is  open  to  doubt  if  even 
llic  ti-cde  schools  of  our  country  could  turn  out,  when 
tiu'ir  period  of  education  terminated,  more  .serviceable 
men  than  these  rigidly  (h'sciplined,  experienced,  and 
s\'stcmatically  worked  inmates  of  our  prisons,  if  their 
perverted  mental  organizations  were  prepared  by  right- 


! 


\ 


CH.4R.4CTl:i!STI(S  WAV)    TYPES 


105 


\ 


\ 


fill  training  uiid  treatment  during  incarceration  to  work 
healthfully,  to  ij,e  hest  ailvanlage  for  themselves  and 
for  the  state. 

The  Spiritual  Effects  of  Drunkenness.- 1  n  dosing 
this  little  treatise,  it  seems  imperative  upon  us  to  call 
attention  to  the  nn'schief  wrought  by  the  use  of  intoxi- 
cating Ii(iuors  uix.n  the  liidden  spiritual  sources  of  man, 
and  we  cannot  do  this  better  than  by  (luotingan  article 
which  ai)peared  some  years  ago  in  "  Harper's  Monthly 
Magazine"  on  that  subject: 

"  The  curse  of  drnnkenntss  on  the  side  of  its/Z/r.^vW// 
devastations    has    been    abunilantly   Jepi(-ted    by  the 
advocates   of   the  temi)erance   reform.     The  am<.unt 
of  grain  consumed  in  the  manufacture  of  intoxicating 
liquors;  the  number  of  men  whose  labor  is  worse  than 
wr.sted  in  imxlucing  and  in  vending  them  ;  the  nun;l)er 
of  lives  destroyed  by  them  ;  the  number  of  paupers  and 
insane  persons  whose  woes  are  traceable  to  this  source  ; 
the  effects  upon  the  health  of  individuals— all  of  these 
things  are  freciuently  set  forth  with  sufficient  fullness  m 
impressix'e  rhetoric.     Some  allowances  must  be  made 
for  the  overstatements  of  zealous  advoc-ates,  but  there 
are  facts  enough  of  an  ai)palling  nature  in  these  repre- 
sentations to  call  for  the  most  serious  thought. 

"  V.\\{  the  worst  side  of  drunkenness  is  not  that  which 
api)ears  in  these  familiar  figures.  The  most  frightful 
effects  of  the  drink  habit  are  not  those  which  can  be 
tal)ulated  in  statistics  and  reported  m  the  census.  It 
is  not  the  waste  of  corn,  nor  the  destruction  of  proj)ertv, 
nor  the  increase  of  taxes,  nor  even  the  ruin  of  physical 
liealth  nor  the  loss  of  life,  which  most  impresses  the 


f"!    \  ■'< 


lOG 


INEBRIETY 


mind  of  the  thoughtful  observer  of  ineliriety.  It  is  the 
effect  of  this  vice  upon  the  cliaracters  of  men  as  it  is 
exhibited  to  him,  day  by  day,  in  his  ordinary  intercourse 
with  them.  It  is  in  tlie  spiritual  realm  that  the  ravages 
of  strong  drink  are  most  terrible, 

"  Body  and  mind  are  so  closely  related  that  when  the 
one  suiTers  the  other  must  share  the  suffering ;  and  the 
injury  to  the  physical  health  resulting  from  intemperate 
drinking  must  therefore  be  accompanied  by  similar  in- 
jury cf  the  mental  and  moral  powers.  But  the  incli- 
nation of  the  popular  thought  is  so  strongly  toward  the 
investigation  of  the  physical  phenomena  that  the  spirit- 
ual consequences  of  drunkenness  are  often  overlooked. 
Degeneration  of  tissues  is  more  palpable  than  degener- 
acy of  spirit,  a  lesion  of  the  brain  more  startlint,^  than 
a  breach  of  faith  ;  but  tlie  deeper  fact,  of  which  the 
senses  take  no  note,  is  the  more  important  fact,  and  it 
would  be  well  if  the  attention  of  men  could  be  fixed 
upon  it. 

"The  phenomena  to  which  we  have  referred  often 
report  themselves  to  the  (juickened  percej^tions  of 
those  who  stand  nearest  to  the  habitual  drinker.  Many 
a  mother  observes,  with  a  heart  that  grows  hea\ier  day 
by  day,  the  signs  of  moral  de-ay  in  the  character  of  her 
son.  It  is  not  the  flushed  face  and  the  heavy  eyes  that 
trouble  her  most ;  it  is  the  evidence  that  his  mind  is  be- 
coming duller  and  fouler,  his  sensibilities  less  acute,  his 
sense  of  honor  less  commanding.  She  discovers  that 
his  loyalty  to  truth  is  somewhat  impaired,  that  he  de- 
ceives her  frequendy  and  without  compunction.  Hiis 
effect  is  often  observed  in  the  character  of  the  inebriate. 


CHARACTERISTICS  AND   TYPT.S 


107 


'rruthfulncss  is  the  fundamentnl  virtue;  when  it  is  iin- 
j)aired  the  character  is  undermined  and  strong  (h'ink 
makes  a  deadly  assault  i][)on  it.  Coupletl  with  this 
loss  of  truthfulness  is  that  weakening  of  the  will  which 
always  accompanies  chronic  alcoholism.  The  man 
loses,  little  by  little,  the  mastery  over  himself ;  the  regal 
faculties  are  in  (diains.  How  many  of  his  l)roken 
promises  are  due  to  a  debilitated  will,  and  how  many 
to  a  decay  of  his  veraciousness,  it  would  be  impossible 
for  the  victim  himself  to  determine.  Doubtless  his  in- 
tention to  break  (/f  his  evil  habit  is  s(Mnetimes  honest, 
and  the  failure  is  due  to  the  paralysis  of  his  will. 

"The  loss  of  self-respect,  the  lowering  of  ambition, 
and  the  fading  out  of  hope  are  signs  of  the  progress  of 
this  disease  in  the  character.  It  is  a  mournful  spectacle 
—  that  of  the  brave,  ingenuous,  high-si)irited  man  sink- 
ing steadily  down  into  the  degradation  of  inebriety  ;  but 
how  many  such  spectacle.-^  are  visible  all  over  the  land! 
And  it  is  not  in  the  character  of  those  alone  who  nre 
notorious  drunkards  that  such  tendencies  appear ;  they 
are  of*?n  distinctly  seen  in  the  lives  of  men  who  are 
never  drunk.  Sir  Henry  Thompson's  testimony  is  em- 
phatic, to  the  efifect  that  the  liabitual  use  of  fermented 
licpiors  to  an  extent  far  short  of  what  is  necessary  to 
pro(lu<  e  intoxication  injures  the  body  and  diminishes 
the  mental  power. 

"If,  as  he  testifies,  a  large  proportion  of  the  most 
painful  and  dangerous  maladies  of  the  bodx-  are  due  to 
the  use  (^f  fermented  li(Hiors  taken  in  cjuantities  which 
are  conventionally  deemed  moderate,  then  it  is  certain 
tha*  such  use  of  them  mu^t  result  also  in  serious  inju- 


108 


INEBRIETY 


m 


ries  to  the  mental  and  moral  nature.  Who  does  not 
know  reputable  gentlemen— physicians,  artists,  clergy- 
men even— who  were  never  drunk  in  their  lives  and 
never  will  be,  but  who  reveal  in  conversation  and  in 
conduct  certain  melancholy  effects  of  the  drinking 
habit?  'rhe  brain  is  so  often  inflamed  with  alcohol 
that  its  functions  are  imperfectly  performed  and  there 
is  a  i)erceptible  loss  of  mental  power  and  of  moral 
control. 

"  The  drinker  is  not  conscious  of  this  loss  ;  but  those 
who  know  him  best  are  i)ainfully  aware  that  his  per- 
ceptions are  less  keen,  his  judgments  less  sound,  his 
temper  less  serene,  his  spiritual  vision  less  clear,  because 
he  tarries  every  day  a  little  too  long  at  the  wine.     Even 
those  who  refuse  to  entertain  ascetic  theories  respecting 
these  beverages  may  be  able  to  see  that  there  are  uses 
of  them  that  stop  short  of  drunkenness  which  are  still 
hurtful  to  tlie  mind  and  heart  as  well  as  the  body. 
'I'hat  conventional  idea   of  moderation   to   which   Sir 
Henry  Thompson  refers  is  quite  elastic;   the  term  is 
stretched  to  cover  habits  that  are  steadily  despoiling  the 
life  of  its  rarest  fruits;.     The  drinking  habit  is  often 
defended  by  reputable  gentlemen  to  whom  the  very 
thought  of  a  debauch  would  be  shocking,  l)ut  to  whom, 
if  it  were  only  lawful,  in  the  tender  and  just  solicitude 
of  friendsliij),  such  words  as  these  might  be  spoken  :  It 
is  true  that  you  are  not  drunkards,  and  may  never  be ; 
but  if  you  could  know,  what  is  too  evident  to  those  who 
love  you  best,  how  your  character  is  slowly  losing  the 
fineness  of  its  texture  and  the  firmness  of  its  outline, 
how  your  art  deteriorates  in  the  dehcacy  of  its  touch, 


ES 


\ 


i 


hce. 


//t 


Mdse/ft 
A/or6 

//}  //ft 

-^ 


1  1 


DIAGRAM 

OF  THE  MORAL  MANIFESTATIONS  RESULTING  FROM  TH 

OF  THE  NERVOUS-MENTALS 


HEALTHY  CONDITIO 

OF 

NERVOUS -MENTAL 
ORGANIZATION 
MAINTAINED 
THROUGHOUT  LIFE 


/rregu/arity 

of 

tempers  fee/in^i. 


»  ll 


ING  FROM  THE  NORMAL  AND  ABNORKAL  CONDITIONS 
US-MENTAL  STRUCTURE. 


^e. 


Self/'nc/ulgence 


in  Mord/d  mental 
Sensations. 


Afordidly 
Unhealthy 


temper  &  Irregularity  Imagination, 
of  /eei/ngs.    \lntense  egoism. 


t^^ 


'l'\ 


^5 


Ayarlclousness, 
Maliciousness, ' 


/Restlessness, 

Suspicion  So/Is  trust. 

Cruelty. 


Imprudence, 
Scheming. 


Impuls/treness, 
Djscouragement, 
Desfiair,. 


Intemperance, 
insanity. 

Disease, 
,  Suicide- 
'      Death. 


UNREST 


ilse 

ral- 
tlon. 


Moderation  of 
Physical  desires. 


temperSfeellngs 


Healthy 
Imagination 


^^Actmty, 
Industry. 
Thoroughness, 

Perfectness, 
Uniformity. 


^er. 


''"^^ 


Prudence,  ^^ 

foresight. 

Sagacity, 

GoodMemory. 
Judgement. 


\^    Satisfaction, 
Hopefulness, 
Cheerfulness, 

Contentment. 
Happiness. 


Highest  Development 
in  this  life. 

Successful 
life. 

REST 

regularity 

~~of 
malc/eslres. 


/rregularlty 


of 

tempers  feelings. 


Self-  Indulgence 

/n 
unhealthy  Instincts. 


/ndolence. 
Impulsiveness. 
Impatience. 


Discouragement 

C/fangeadllIfy, 

lossofpresence  of  mind. 


loss  of  Self  control. 
Ale/encholy. 


Pec/;'c\''ness. 
Despair 


Intemperance. 
Insanity. 


Criminality. 
Disease,  Deat/i. 


li  *  s : 


CHARACTERISTICS  AND   TYPES 


109 


how  the  atm(xspliere  of  your  life  seems  to  grow  murky 
and  the  sky  lowers  gloomily  above  you,  you  would  not 
think  your  daily  indulgence  harmless  in  its  measure. 
It  is  in  just  such  lives  as  these  that  drink  exhibits  some 
of  its  most  mournful  tragedies." 


